


What blooms in ash

by heatgeneratingtechniques



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Blood and Violence, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Loss of Innocence, M/M, Married Couple, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-11-10 06:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11121936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heatgeneratingtechniques/pseuds/heatgeneratingtechniques
Summary: If they can survive the trek through monster-infested North Carolina, Rhett, Link, and their daughter have a chance at a new life."Sometimes the only way out of danger is to fight your way through it."





	1. Changes to be made

**Author's Note:**

> [Image source](http://www.blogcdn.com/realestate.aol.com/blog/media/2012/12/5-the-blast-hatch-is-designed-to-be-air-tight-and-can-even-be-camouflaged-to-look-like-a-giant-landscape-boulder.jpg)

 

_Almost there._

It’s a mantra Link repeats as he walks, his jaw clenched against the blinding pain shooting through the right half of his body. He clutches his injured arm with his good hand. He knows that the poison is spreading because he can’t focus on anything for too long, his gaze wandering from the dusty earth to the burned-out shells of homes around him to the setting sun on the horizon.

“Almost there,” he whispers.

With every step, he prays that he doesn’t run into any other danger. Encountering two whiptails in a previously cleared area was an ominous sign.

“Almost there.”

There’s blood oozing through his fingers and his shirt is stained a deep blue from the things he just killed. It smells sharp and chemical, and bile rises in his throat at the memory of his knife cutting through prickly flesh. He swallows with difficulty and keeps walking.

_Almost there._

He has to make it home. His family is probably waiting at the table with dinner going cold on their plates, pacing the shelter and checking the radio. He hates the thought of them worrying, but there’s no way of contacting them. His walkie-talkie broke in the fight, the pieces now shoved through his belt.

When he reaches the square hatch door in the midst of the weeds, he can barely move his feet. His head feels heavy. Even with his glasses on, the world has gone fuzzy and painfully bright.

As he shuffles forward, dragging his feet through the dirt, the hatch door creaks open. Rhett’s tousled head comes into view.

Relief makes Link falter. He doesn’t need to think anymore. He collapses to his knees as his husband’s arms encircle him. Rhett’s speaking – asking pointless questions probably – but his voice comes from so far away and he’s talking fast, _too fast_. All Link can see and hear is the pain, blazing hot and unavoidable. From a distance, he’s aware of a flurry of activity around him. He’s being lifted off his feet. There’s the sound of boots on the rungs of the ladder descending to the shelter they’ve called home for the past year. Rhett giving orders to their daughter. He tries to listen, but the words slip through his grasp like water through a sieve.

The cold certainty of an icepack pressing against his forehead briefly tugs him back to reality. He opens his eyes. Rhett is crouched over him, his face taut with concern.

“Two whiptails,” Link tries to say, but all that comes out is, “I... got...” Rhett only nods.

“Just let me cut this shirt off ya, bo. You’re gonna be okay.”

Cool air wafts over his skin as his shirt is lifted away. Rhett whistles between his teeth.

“They got you good, huh.” He looks over his shoulder. “Antidote?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“Give it here.”

Link turns his head, a difficult task since his muscles feel as stiff as hardened taffy. Their daughter stands against the opposite wall, her brown eyes wide. She’s wearing the blue shirt that Rhett had made her in the brief period of time he’d attempted sewing. Link tries to smile at her, to tell her not to worry, but his face won’t cooperate. One of his eyelids begins fluttering uncontrollably. The world around him becomes even brighter and louder than usual, the walls of the shelter around him morphing into a wavering lattice of vibrant reds and grays.

“Bite on this,” Rhett says, his voice echoing strangely in Link’s head. A wad of fabric is shoved between Link’s teeth. “S’gonna hurt some, but you’ll be okay. Nina,” he adds with a quick glance behind him, “cover your ears.”

Rhett says something else after that, but all Link catches is, “Still,” before his right arm explodes in a mass of pain.

He screams, biting down on the fabric in his mouth with all of his might. Liquid fire pours through his veins. It feels like flesh and blood are burning away, leaving behind nothing but scorched bone.

Rhett squeezes his good hand in a slow rhythm.

“Stay with me, bo. Stay with me.”

Link tries. He breathes as deeply as he can manage, tries to squeeze Rhett’s hand with his own. Still, the pain of the antidote worsens until he wishes that his arm would fall off.

Then suddenly the pain recedes, leaving him gasping in relief.

Rhett squeezes his hand again and murmurs something gentle. A question. But this time Link can’t find the strength to reciprocate.

~

He dreams of the day they brought Nina home. He knows it’s a dream because her room is pink instead of pastel green. They’re also hovering several inches above the floor and Rhett’s hair is live, flowing seaweed.

Rhett cries when he holds her, a tiny thing swathed in a white blanket, her skin the same rich brown as the leaves falling outside. Link feels a lump in his throat when it’s his turn. He can hardly believe that they’re _parents_.

Baby Nina stares up at him, her eyebrows furrowed as if she’s trying to figure him out. One chubby hand reaches for his glasses. He laughs and lets her take them.

But the pain in his shoulder is still there. It gets worse until he notices thin whiptail leaves wrapped around his arm.

He yelps.

Then Nina and Rhett are gone and there’s a knife in his hand and he’s yelling and stabbing at an oblong-shaped thing on the ground as it drags him through the dust—

He opens his eyes.

He’s in bed, staring up at the curved white ceiling. His arm hurts, but not as much as before. His fingers move when flexed, which is a good sign. Whiptail venom causes paralysis if left unchecked; Rhett had injected the antidote in time.

He remembers stumbling upon the whiptails and throwing up his arm to protect himself from their sharp, thrashing leaves, but not much else.

He can turn his head without difficulty now, but it’s hard to see much without his glasses. Nina’s in a chair by the foot of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest as she scribbles away furiously at something on the nightstand, probably a math worksheet that Rhett had made for her. Something that she probably would have done if she had still been in her eighth grade class. He watches her for a moment, amused by how similar to Rhett she became when focused on a task, her brow furrowed and lip caught between her teeth. She stops briefly to flick a braid out of her face before returning to work.

“Hey,” Link tries to say, but it comes out as a whisper.

Her head snaps up at the sound of his voice. For a moment she stares at him, eyes welling up with tears, before bolting from the table and pouncing on him.

Link stifles a cry as she jostles his injured arm.

“It’s okay, honey.” He holds her close with his good arm, swallowing down the lump in his own throat. “I’m okay.”

“I was scared!” She sniffs, the sound sending a pang through his heart. “Pops said you were gonna wake up, but I thought you were gonna _die_.”

“Nope!” Link chuckles weakly. “He got me the antidote in time.” The thought of her worrying about him gives rise to a flurry of guilty thoughts. “Look.” He tries to sit upright, bracing himself against the mattress with his good arm, but pain lances through his side and he falls back with a gasp.

“Are you okay?” She looks worried again.

“I’ve been better,” he says as lightly as he can manage. He means it as a joke, but his words do nothing to ease the tension on her face. “There’s an ice pack around, isn’t there?”

“Yes! I’ll get it.” She springs up and hurries from the room without further urging.

Alone, Link tries to sit up again, propping himself up on his left elbow, inching himself backwards until he can rest against the pillows. By the time Nina returns with an ice pack, water, and (to his immense relief) the bottle of painkillers, he’s sweating and out of breath, but also sitting upright.

“Thank you,” he says. “I was gonna ask if you could get painkillers too, but I forgot.”

Nina grins. “You _always_ forget, Dad.”

Link downs three painkillers and a long swig of water before pressing the ice pack to his side. “ _Much_ better.” He pats the space on the bed beside him. “C’mere.”

A familiar sound from above catches their attention, the iron door creaking open and shut. Nina’s face brightens.

“Pa’s back!”

She hurries from the room. Link hears her excited voice mixed with a much deeper one before Nina reappears with Rhett just behind her. His face goes slack with relief when he sees Link.

“Hey, man.” Link tries to sound casual, as if Rhett had just come home from work to find him making dinner in the kitchen. When Rhett only stares at him, Link tries to grin. “What, now you can’t talk?”

He has more jokes ready, but everything fades away when Rhett’s face collapses. Link barely has time to breathe before Rhett crosses the room and wraps him in an embrace that makes him want to cry all over again.  
~

It’s another day before Link works up the courage to look at his injuries while Rhett is changing his bandages, and what he sees almost makes him faint. His right arm was slashed in several places, the wounds still a livid shade of red. His torso isn’t much better. Link swallows and shuts his eyes, pressing his head into the pillow.

“It’s not so bad,” Rhett says. He works quickly, wiping Link down with a clean, damp cloth before applying new bandages. “You’ll have a few pretty scars to add to your collection though.”

Link chuckles weakly. “That’s one way to look at it.”

He’s been hurt by monsters before, but this was the first time he’d been caught off-guard. He hates the recovery process. He hates needing to ask Nina for help with simple tasks, like bending to pick something up off the floor. He hates being stuck in the shelter when Rhett goes foraging alone with a radio on his belt and a gun in his hand.

More than anything else, however, he hates that Drew comes to visit.

Link knows there’s no reason to dislike Drew. The man lives on the far side of town in a shelter hewn hobbit-style into the side of a hill. He and Rhett met in physical therapy before the monster sightings started and had bonded over mutual interests, one of which was preparing for the Apocalypse. He’s just shy of six feet tall, with bushy dark hair, an equally wild beard, and a prosthetic leg from his time spent deployed in Iraq. He’s an invaluable resource for the McLaughlin-Neals, always able to procure needed supplies and information gleaned from the chatter on his amateur radio setup.

Link tries to be polite to him. No need to offend the one man who’s helped them through so much.

“There are whiptails _everywhere,_ ” Drew tells them one evening a week later. He’s brought a stack of canned beans for dinner that he’d found stashed beneath some flattened boxes at the supermarket. “The post office downtown is practically surrounded by ‘em.”

Link’s feeling more like his old self again today. “You think we can burn ‘em out?”

Across the table, Rhett shakes his head. “We could try, but there are a _lot_ of them. You know what happens once you get a bunch of whiptails in one area.”

“Other monsters are soon to follow.” Link shivers. By his side, Nina edges closer to his chair, her face pinched with worry. He puts an arm around her shoulders and squeezes gently.

“There was something else I wanted to share with you,” Drew says as he rummages through his backpack on the floor beside his chair. He comes up with a folded piece of paper. “Here.”

He unfolds a hand-drawn map of a portion of North Carolina, with their small town of Youngsville at the top and the city of Fayetteville at the bottom. Drew taps a finger there.

“There’s some interesting stuff I’ve been hearing about this area,” he says. “The state government has been mobilizing an initiative to rid North Carolina of monsters, starting with Cumberland County. Apparently there have been successes in Virginia and Tennessee, which they want to replicate here. They’re starting with Fort Bragg, since there’s still a small military presence there. Of course, the federal government is fuck— _screwed,_ ” he corrects with a glance at Nina, “so if this is successful, they’re going to need all the help they can get.”

He pauses, letting the words hang in the air. Realization dawns on Rhett’s face first.

“And you think we’d be better off there than we are here,” he says quietly.

Drew grins, snaps his fingers in an annoyingly chipper manner that makes Link want to smack him. “Exactly. There’s no way I’d make it with my leg in the shape it’s in, but I think y’all might have a shot at making it.”

Link doesn’t want to hear it.

“Fort Bragg is, what, an hour and a half away by car?” He shakes his head, acutely aware of Nina still huddled in his embrace. “We’d never make it on foot. We’re safer off here.”

“But _are_ we?”

Rhett’s face is alight with that thoughtful expression that Link can’t decide if he loves or hates.

“Rhett.” He sighs. “We’d _never_ make it.”

“Why not? We know how to fight if we have to.”

Link raises his still-bandaged arm. “But look what happened to me. No amount of training can prepare you for whiptail leaves coming at you full-speed.”

Rhett tips his head to one side. “Well, I’d beg to differ on that, but Link, _that’s not the point._ ”

There’s an argument brewing. Drew opens his mouth to speak before thinking better of it and concentrating on his food instead. Link holds Rhett’s gaze, the stubbornness in his husband’s eyes mirrored in his own.

“Nina,” Link says finally, “go to your room.”

“But Dad-”

“It’s not like she can’t hear us through the walls,” Rhett reminds him.

Nina sits up straight in her chair. “I want to hear what you guys are talking about.”

“This affects her too, Link.”

They’re all looking at him, three pairs of expectant eyes. For a second, Link wants to lash out at them all.

“I... I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he says instead.

~

They argue that night. Long after Drew has left and Nina has gone to bed, they exchange sharp words. Link doesn’t like the idea of leaving, but he dislikes Rhett’s calm self-assurance even more.

“You make it sound like traveling ninety miles through monster-infested territory is a walk in the park,” he mutters as he changes into an old set of pajamas.

Rhett is already sitting in bed, his pillow tucked between his back and the wall as he scribbles something in his journal.

“No,” he says after a moment. “I just have confidence in our abilities.”

At those words, at the casual insinuation of Link’s lack of faith, he almost snaps. The stress and pain of the past week, piled on top of the stress of surviving another day in this new monster-infested world, have left him struggling for every bit of control he can find.

Living in the shelter, he has some control. He doesn’t want to leave the familiarity of this place, as cramped as it sometimes feels. It’s the place that Rhett was preparing before the world fell apart, back when his obsession with apocalyptic scenarios and survivalist lifestyles had merely been a hobby. It’s only four rooms: his and Rhett’s, Nina’s, the storage room, and the common area. They have a working generator, sporadic internet access, a few surveillance cameras gifted from Drew, a pantry stocked with MREs and canned food, and water that needs to be boiled before they can use it. The walls are plastered with favorite posters and old pictures of happier times.

It isn’t ideal, but it is familiar. Comfortable.

He can clean whenever he wants. He can help Nina with her schoolwork or listen to her tell a story she’d made up. He and Rhett can sing and play guitar on the nights when they need extra comfort. He can sleep without worrying about teeth or talons ripping his belly open or stealing Rhett and Nina away.

If they leave, he will have none of that.

He knows he’s being selfish. There are days when he catches Nina wiping away tears as she folds her clothes, or sees Rhett staring up at the curved ceiling with a lost look on his face. And when he thinks about it, he doesn’t like their isolation much himself.

The fight drained from him, he sinks onto the bed and tells Rhett that he’s terrified.

Rhett puts his journal aside and flicks off the lamp beside him. Link almost tells him to turn it back on, but instead lets Rhett pull him close.

“What should we do instead, Link?” he says softly, the rumble of his voice comforting against Link’s cheek. “Stay hidden down here until we die? What kind of life would that be for Nina?”

Link has no answer. He lets Rhett soothe him with kisses and gentle touches instead.

Perhaps Rhett has a point.

As Link drifts off to sleep, he hears Rhett’s soft whisper. “We all need a chance at something better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [thegreyhenley,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreyHenley) [missingparentheses,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missingparentheses) [mythical-michelle,](http://mythical-michelle.tumblr.com/) and [evidentlyhonest](http://evidentlyhonest.tumblr.com/) for their input in this chapter. :D


	2. Frying pan, fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image source](https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3029/2519534737_d39b931079_b.jpg)

“Bye, bed.”

Rhett zips his military backpack closed for the last time. MREs, first aid kit, walkie-talkie, pistol ammo, an extra hunting knife, and a rolled-up poster of Lionel Ritchie were all inside.

Hard to believe that they’re finally leaving today.

“Bye, room.”

Rhett looks over his and Link’s room, trying to memorize what he can. He takes in the sight of their bed against the curved gray wall, the lamp on the crooked nightstand beside it, the space above the bed where Lionel Ritchie’s poster had been, the red-and-white rug Link had swiped from an abandoned house several months ago. Happy memories here have been few, but he’ll still miss it all.

“Bye, generator. Bye, sewing machine!”

Drew will be using their shelter as a storage area. He’s staying behind because of his prosthetic leg and because he said he’d “like to see how surviving here compares to surviving in Iraq.” Link called him crazy. Drew only laughed and agreed.

Rhett looks around the room one last time.

_We may never come back._

The thought is deeply unsettling.

With a quick head shake, he forces himself to turn away. Shouldering his backpack, he ducks out of the room and into the common area. Nina’s there, flitting about the room in cutoff jeans, hiking shoes similar to Rhett’s own, and a camo-print shirt she’d made herself as she says her farewells.

“Bye, kitchen! Bye, stove! Bye, table and chairs!”

“You got your backpack?” he asks.

“Yes sir, Papa-pop.” Nina snaps into an almost-comical salute, her free hand pointing toward the camouflage backpack leaning against a chair. Rhett can’t help grinning as she starts bouncing on her toes.

“You seem pretty excited.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not nervous at all?”

Nina almost falters at that, her face dropping as she rubs her forearm with her other hand. She has Link’s way of turning in on herself when uncomfortable. “Kind of.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Rhett makes a willful attempt to shake off his nerves and take on some of her energy. He crosses the room and hugs her briefly, realizing with a start that she’s grown. Her head comes up just above his elbow. He remembers her being small enough to cling to his shins while he shuffled around the kitchen making dinner, back when life was a thousand times easier, the thought bringing with it a surge of unexpected emotion. He clears his throat. “Don’t let fear discourage you, okay? Sometimes the only way out of danger is to fight your way through it. Know what I mean?”

“Mmhm.”

“I promise that we’ll make it there safely. Nobody’s gonna hurt you while Dad and I are around.”

“Mmkay.”

Link emerges from the storage room then, his eyebrows drawn together in a slight frown as he mutters, “I already have a headache.” His face softens at the sight of his family. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah.” Rhett’s palms are sweating. He feels like he’s missing something even though he’s already reviewed the contents of his backpack several times. Link pauses, eyes searching his face.

His husband clears his throat and extends both arms. “Hands.”

They join hands there in the middle of the tiny common room and take a moment to breathe. It’s a tradition they’ve kept up for years, a brief moment of quiet that they’ve tried to share before Nina's martial arts tournaments and soccer games to help calm her nerves (and her parents’ nerves, when they’re honest enough to admit it.). They’re all alive with that same nervous energy this morning, only there’s a whole lot more at stake.

So much could go wrong on this trip, Rhett thinks, his gaze flicking from Link to Nina and back again. They could be separated or badly injured. Or killed.

After a moment, Link curls his thumb along Rhett’s.

“Better?”

Rhett nods, somehow finds his voice. “We’ll be okay as long as we stick together and keep our eyes open.”

“‘If you see something, say something,’” Nina quotes with a grin.

Rhett squeezes her hand. “Exactly.”

Link grins crookedly. “Let’s do this.”

Link goes up the ladder first. When he signals that they’re in the clear, Nina climbs next. Halfway up the ladder, she pauses to look back at the common area below.

“Bye, shelter.”

~

Rhett has always been proud of how he managed to blend his survivalism with his daily life.

He started out small. As a teenager, he stockpiled canned food in his closet and kept a pocket knife in his mattress to protect himself in case civilization collapsed during the night. He read every survival guide he could get his hands on.

As an adult, he didn’t have millions to invest in safe houses or expensive supplies. But he did save up enough to build a fallout shelter in the backyard. He stockpiled food, clothes, weapons, and enough medicine to keep a small pharmacy going. Some of his excitement transferred to Nina as she grew. She pestered her dads to enroll her in sports, martial arts classes, and the local Girl Scout troop because she wanted to be ready for the worst, just like him. On some weekends, she interrupted Rhett’s backyard exercises to show off the latest moves she’d learned.

“Why don’t you go bother Dad?” he asked one sunny Saturday morning. Nina was in second grade at the time. He was deep in a standing stretch and his daughter was scampering in circles around him, kicking and punching the air wildly.

“Can’t!” she yelled. “He said he has a headache and I should get on your nerves instead.”

With a groan, Rhett straightened. “Fine. Show me what you got.”

He instantly regretted his words as his daughter kicked him squarely in the crotch.

Despite such mishaps, Rhett was proud of Nina’s aptitude for sports. He attended every game and tournament, walking up and down the sidelines as he yelled encouragement to the little girl in microbraids. When he sat down, an embarrassed Link whispered that he was “being _that_ parent again” until Nina scored a goal. Then they both jumped up and cheered unashamedly.

Life was busy but uncomplicated.

Then the monster sightings began. Stories of inexplicably grisly crimes and unusually vicious plants trickled in from cities across the globe. They began hearing strange howls and screams at night.

One night, Rhett awoke to the sound of tearing metal. He’d never forget the sight of a twitching being in the driveway, destroying his Scion with its bare hands.

Rhett moved his family into their backyard shelter the next morning, and a national state of emergency was declared soon after. Nina’s middle school closed until further notice. A fire swept through the center of town, leaving strange plants with long thin leaves in its wake.

In those first awful days as they tried to get in touch with family and friends, Rhett was completely lost. He’d spent so much time yearning for a future that might never happen, but now that future was _here_ and he had no idea what to do next.

While Rhett floundered and tried to keep himself together, Link was the one who sprang into action. He organized schedules for them all. He sat up late comforting their daughter when she had nightmares or was overwhelmed with anxiety. He was strong enough for Rhett to lean on when he was exhausted. When the internet and electricity worked, he was the first to check for news.

Thanks to his insistence on organization, they survived those first terrible days.

Link was the one to take charge once they made the decision to leave, as well. He and Rhett both studied the map, planned how far they would walk each day and in which towns they would spend the night. He made everyone’s packing lists and divided their belongings into what they’d leave behind and what they’d take along, which was the hardest part of all.

It was only at night that he let Rhett know of his own fears.

~

The first day of travel is long and uneventful. They walk almost twenty uninterrupted miles, from Youngsville to Shotwell, taking breaks every hour to check their progress against the map and to eat and drink a little of their food. They pass small towns and long stretches of woods, some strange, some familiar, all eerily silent except for the sound of birds in the trees. Whiptails are visible every now and then, green-and-yellow oblong bodies half-buried in the ground with long red-tipped leaves waving almost innocently in the breeze. Every now and then, they come upon a car, tilted into the ditch at the side of the road with its windshield smashed in or long claw marks on the doors. Rhett can imagine their hapless drivers being t-boned by hulking beings that roared and slashed through the metal.

A few hours before sunset, they make a point of searching for a place near the main road in which to hole up for the night, as the majority of the creatures roaming the landscape are nocturnal. By this time, Link is practically carrying Nina, who seems on the verge of falling asleep with each step.

They find a one-story brick house with an unlocked door. Baby toys are still scattered on the floor and food is mouldering away in the warm refrigerator. Rhett makes sure the house is empty before they settle in; no use being surprised by a midnight attack.

Link is setting out that evening’s ration of food and water when he returns to the front room, while Nina pads around the adjoining kitchen in her socks.

“Do you think they’re still alive?” she asks, her eyes on the family picture on the wall. She doesn’t sound on the verge of tears, but Link and Rhett share a quick glance before Link goes to her.

“I don’t know,” he says gently.

The couple in the picture is young and smiling — the husband in a hunter’s jacket and a worn baseball cap, the wife in a light pink dress. Between them is a newborn dressed in green, fast asleep. Nina sniffs.

“I hope their baby is okay.”

“Me too,” Link says, pulling her close for a brief moment. “Let’s get something to eat, okay? We can’t spend all our time worrying about everyone else.”

That night, Rhett and Link sleep in shifts, four hours at a time, while the other keeps watch. Rhett spends his time awake doing stretches for his aching back and strolling through the house. He almost feels that they’re at a crime scene, that touching anything here would sully it irretrievably. So he keeps his hands to himself and tries to guess what he can about the home’s previous occupants.

The husband was either a plumber or an electrician, judging from the magnets on the fridge. The wife worked for an IT company in Raleigh and had been awarded employee of the month a little over a year ago, just a few months before the monster sightings turned into outright attacks.

Their baby had been born in January of the previous year, according to the date on the “It’s A Boy!” card lying at the top of a stack of magazines on the coffee table. The baby would have been around six months old when the national state of emergency was declared.

The knowledge makes Rhett’s heart ache a little. He doesn’t know what he would have done if Nina had still been that small when everything fell apart.

As they pack up to leave in the morning, he tells Link and Nina about what he’s found. Nina seems interested, but Link only shakes his head.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

Something about his tone of voice sparks annoyance in Rhett, urges him to string Link along a bit. “Do what?”

“Poking around other people’s things to find out what they were like.”

“I didn’t touch anyth—”

“This isn’t a museum.”

The words were quiet, but Rhett hears the warning there. He realizes that Link is on the verge of cracking, anxiety tucked into his every move. Rhett backs off then, his hands raised in surrender. This isn’t the time to argue.

Before they leave, Nina insists on gathering the baby toys into a basket at the side of the room.

“Dad said it’s not a museum,” she says when Rhett asks why. “I just want the house to look neat in case the family come back. To say thank you for letting us stay here.”

~

The second day dawns sunny and clear, typical of early June.

They walk at a slower pace today. None of them are used to walking long distances, and Rhett’s legs are still aching from the previous day’s long walk. Neither Link nor Nina complain, but they’re both moving more slowly.

Rhett is amazed that they haven’t come across a monster yet, aside from the occasional whiptail sighting. If not for the telltale signs of destruction — trees toppled into the road, houses vandalized by either human or monstrous hands — he could almost imagine that they were out hiking on a holiday weekend. He dwells on the surreal feeling of walking down the middle of roads previously traveled by car, the only sounds coming from birds in the trees and a breeze rustling the leaves. At the back of his mind is that ever-present fear of being attacked, a horrible feeling that he’s still learning to live with. He’s jittery at first, fingers twitching to his holster at every rustle in the grass, but everything around them remains strangely peaceful.

“Hey Pa.” Nina shuffles up to him. They’ve been walking for an hour, according to Rhett’s watch. “When you adopted me, did you ever think that we’d be doing something like this?”

“Yes,” Rhett says, poker-faced. “We adopted you specifically because we knew the apocalypse was imminent.”

“No, you didn’t.” When Rhett only shrugs, Nina almost stops walking. “Did you?” She looks to Link for help. “He’s joking, right Dad?”

Link shakes his head, but can’t hide his grin.

“I knew it!” Nina falls back into step beside Rhett. She’s still worn out from yesterday’s travel — they all are — but her eyes are alight. “Y’can’t fool me, Pa. Pops. Popsicle stick.”

Rhett tilts his head down towards her. “Popsicle stick? That’s a new one.”

She smiles up at him, but the expression freezes on her face. Her braids fly as she whips her head to look back the way they’ve come.

“What was that?” she whispers

They stop walking, straining to hear anything unusual. Rhett hears it first, a distant growl that sends a shiver of terror up his spine.

“Off the road,” he says, voice shaky with sudden fear.

No one moves. Rhett realizes that the birds around them have gone silent.

The growl sounds again, louder this time, accompanied by heavy footsteps that Rhett can almost _feel_. There’s something around the bend in the road.

“Off the road!” He grabs Nina’s arm and starts pulling her towards the tangled undergrowth. He’s gratified to see that Link has drawn his handgun.

“Watch for whiptails,” Link says tersely.

Rhett grunts in response. They pick their way carefully through the trees until Rhett’s deemed that they’re far enough from the road to risk hiding for a moment. Link checks that his gun is loaded and ready, his face grimly set as he racks the slide. Rhett draws his own weapon and does the same. The blood is humming in his ears, the beginnings of adrenaline in preparation for a fight.

Between them, Nina is very still.

It feels like an eternity before they see it, the massive creature shambling down the road.

Rhett’s hands are sweating so badly the gun almost slips from his grasp. He knows the monsters that frequent this area of North Carolina thanks to Drew’s information and his own research and experience. He knows the names of the beasts endemic to three continents.

But he’s never seen this one before.

It’s a huge shambling thing, covered in matted gray fur. From their hiding spot, Rhett can see that the face is round, like a cat’s, but with a protruding nose and a crooked jumble of long teeth. It moves slowly, head weaving back and forth as it...listens? Smells? Rhett has no idea. He doesn’t know how this monster works, what its weak points are, whether it would be wiser to fight or run.

The beast turns slowly, head tilted towards the sky as if counting the clouds.

Its eyes are pools of black.

It rises, balancing on powerful haunches as it continues searching the sky, its clawed paws twitching. With a shiver of fear, Rhett realizes just how _tall_ the thing is, standing eight or nine feet high.

Link breathes a barely audible “Shit.”

 _Whump._ Front paws hit the ground hard enough for Rhett to hear. The sharp nose jerks in their direction.

The growl comes again, low and wild, from somewhere behind that mass of long teeth.

Rhett tastes panic at the back of his throat, sharp as bile. He braces his gun in both hands, vaguely aware of Link doing the same.

Nina still hasn’t moved.

Something disturbs the undergrowth on the opposite side of the road, maybe a squirrel or a rabbit. The beast’s head snaps to one side as it catches the scent. With a low rumble, it bounds off the road in the direction of the disturbance, leaving trampled saplings and bushes in its wake.

Its thumping footfalls soon fade away.

Somewhere far above, a blue jay caws harshly.

Rhett realizes that he’s shaking.

They have sixty more miles to travel on foot. Rhett was prepared to deal with the monsters he’d grown familiar with, the whiptails and slithers and the occasional caddy. But the prospect of facing entirely unknown beasts makes him want to curl up in the leaves and sleep for a very long time.

He doesn’t realize Nina is tugging on his sleeve until she speaks.

“We should go,” she says, a quiver in her voice. “Dad? Pa? We should go.”

Rhett swallows. His mouth tastes like dust.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. He attempts a smile, but his face might as well have been carved from stone. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

~

Link is very quiet. As they walk, Rhett catches Nina glancing up at him before quietly falling into step by his side. He acknowledges her presence with a brief arm across the shoulders and nothing more.

They barely travel ten miles that day, constantly looking over their shoulders and jumping at every rustle in the bushes. That night, they camp in the model home of an unfinished subdivision in Clayton. It’s a two-story house with high white ceilings, wide windows, and dusty, plastic-covered furniture. Not an ideal place to stay, but no one protests when Rhett suggests that they stop here.

Link still hasn’t spoken.

Rhett knows the storm is coming. He sees it in every brittle move his husband makes as he unrolls the sleeping bags on the living room floor, in the dark circles beneath his eyes when he removes his glasses, but Rhett keeps his mouth shut. It’s better to deal with this after Nina’s asleep, when the two of them can speak without mincing words.

Nina lights the lantern and claims a spot by Link’s pack. She starts fiddling with his handgun’s spare magazine.

“Nina, put that down, please,” Link says wearily. “You need to eat something.”

She’s loading the empty magazine with bullets now, her head bent over her task. Rhett taught her how to handle pistols at the shooting range near their house, but he knows that Link’s never been comfortable with the idea of Nina using a weapon. “I’m gonna finish this first, Dad.”

“That’s not your job.” Link’s voice sharpens. “I said put that down. You don’t need to be worrying about guns.”

Rhett stops in the middle of setting out the night’s meal of canned soup, opening his mouth to intervene, but their daughter suddenly throws the magazine on the floor.

“I’m not even touching your freaking gun, Dad,” she bursts out. “I wish you’d let me do something useful for once!”

“Leave it alone!” Link barks. “You can help by eating your dang food.”

Rhett finally speaks up. “Hey—”

“No!” Her face is stubbornly set, her chin tipped up so she can look Link in the eye. “There’s a monster out there we’ve never seen before, and all you want me to do is _eat_?”

“Don’t be stupid!”

She’s on her feet in an instant. “I’m not stupid. You are!”

The room is silent for a long moment. They’re frozen in a tableau: Link still sitting cross-legged with a half-rolled sleeping bag in his hands, Nina standing over him with fists clenched.

“I’m _not_ stupid,” she says again, and storms from the room.

“Wait!” Link groans. “No...” He moves to follow her, but Rhett quickly gestures for him to stay.

“I’ll talk to her.”

~

Rhett finds Nina on the porch, standing at the railing. She looks up at him, her eyes swimming with tears.

“Why is Dad mad at me?”

“He’s not mad at you.” Rhett joins her at the railing and together they look out across the unfinished subdivision, at the bulldozers and backhoes left scattered among piles of dirt and flat plots of land. “He’s upset about that thing we saw earlier. He’s stressed out. We all are. That doesn’t excuse what either of you said, though.”

“Oh.” Nina looks down at her hands. “I didn’t mean to call him stupid.”

“He didn’t mean to call you stupid, either. Sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they’re under a lot of stress.”

The sun has almost completely set on the horizon, the reddish glow just visible above the trees, before Rhett convinces her to come back inside.

~

For his part, Link apologizes profusely. Nina stares down at her soup and offers a mumbled apology of her own.

A tentative peace settles over the room. Rhett knows there’s not much else to say on the topic, so he changes the subject. They talk about the distance they’ve traveled so far, the weather, the miles they hope to travel the next day.

It isn’t until after Nina has gone to sleep that Link mentions their earlier encounter.

“What are we going to do now?”

He and Rhett are in the kitchen, Rhett sitting on the counter while Link sits hunched over on one of the stools beside him.

“There’s so much we don’t know about these monsters,” Rhett said slowly. “Where they came from, why they migrate from place to place, what their purpose is, why they’re mostly nocturnal...” He lets his words trail off. “I don’t know.”

Link scratches at two day’s worth of stubble, already thicker than anything Rhett could grow in that timespan. He removes his wedding ring, rolling the thick black band between shaky fingers.

“I’m scared, Rhett.”

“Me t—”

“I mean, I’m terrified.” The words leave Link in a rush. “We still have fifty, sixty miles to go. That’s almost a week of travel if we go as slowly as we did today. We still haven’t encountered another person yet. A-and that thing isn’t nocturnal! We saw it in the middle of the day! And it’s, it’s freaking taller than _you_!”

The memory of the gray beast standing on its hind legs, mass of teeth bared, is enough to make Rhett shiver. He reaches for Link’s hand. “Come here.”

Link has been the one to keep them going for the past several days, but tonight is Rhett’s turn to be the strong one. Link stands between Rhett’s knees and sinks willingly into open arms, head on Rhett’s chest as he trembles with emotion held back all day. Rhett kisses his forehead and tells him to let it all out.

When Link finally goes still, Rhett tips his head up and finds him more than willing to kiss, chasing away the fear of the day with the familiar sensations of lips and tongue. Rhett does what he can to ease his worries. He breathes reassurance into the crook of Link’s neck. His hands slip beneath his husband’s shirt, smoothing over whatever tension he finds in the muscles of his back and shoulders.

But when he tries to pull Link closer, wanting to feel something against the beginnings of his own arousal, Link stops him with a murmured, “Not tonight.”

Rhett feels a moment of disappointment, but he understands.

So they stay in the kitchen until the first rays of sunlight shine in through the window over the sink, holding each other as if clutching a life preserver in the midst of a stormy sea.


	3. In the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image source](http://www.southeastfarmpress.com/sites/southeastfarmpress.com/files/styles/article_featured_standard/public/corn-field-nc-2015_1.jpg)

 

In the morning, a remnant of guilt clings to the back of Link’s mind. Nina doesn’t say much, shrugging when Link comes into the living room with its plastic-covered furniture and asks her if she slept well. He sits down beside her on the floorboards as she rolls up her sleeping bag, choosing to overlook her pointedly turning away from him. He deserves this. The damage he caused will take some time to repair.

“Nina Jay.”

“What.” She doesn’t bother looking up. Link suppresses a sigh.

“I want to give you something,”

She squints at him suspiciously, her face going slack with surprise when she sees what he’s holding. “A knife?”

“Yeah. You’re gonna need a way to defend yourself.”

Hey eyes flick from his face to the sheathed blade in his hand. The blade is almost twice as big as her palm. Something about the sight of her taking the knife from him makes Link’s heart clench. He never factored giving Nina a weapon into any of his plans. The image of her fighting a creature is disconcerting. What circumstances would require Nina defending herself, anyway? Would he and Rhett be missing? Injured? Dead?

With difficulty, he sets those thoughts aside. He’s not going to die. He can’t.

“I don’t want you chopping off a finger now,” he says mock-sternly, tempering his words with a smile. “Keep that thing safe.”

This time, she smiles tentatively.

“I will.”

~

When Nina was eighteen months old, they took her to the beach for the first time. Link made sure she was properly equipped with a pair of pink arm floaties that clashed horribly with her lurid green bathing suit.

“It’ll make her easier to see if we get separated!” Link explained to an incredulous but laughing Rhett.

They took her down to the water together, chuckling at the confused look on her round little face as she looked at the ocean for the first time. She’d been in swimming pools before, but never anything this loud.

As soon as her toes touched wet sand, she screamed bloody murder, desperately trying to claw her way up Rhett’s arm. He quickly scooped her back up as Link doubled over with laughter.

“I thought she’d like this.” Rhett sounded bewildered.

“You need to be patient with her,” Link said. He held out both hands. “Here.”

Rhett handed her over. For the rest of the day, Link stuck close beside Nina, gently guiding her as she played in the sand. She didn’t like the water much, but by the end of the day, Link got her to walk on wet sand without tears, which he saw as a huge accomplishment.

The memories of that day still make Link smile. One of the biggest things he’d learned from all the parenting books he’d read and classes he’d taken was the importance of patience. He couldn’t push Nina into speaking to him again, any more than he could get the last word in an argument with Rhett.

They walk in silence for almost an hour, Link glancing nervously over his shoulder, but there are no monsters in sight.

“Hey, Dad.” Nina falls into step beside him. “Do you think we’re gonna get to Fort Bragg tomorrow?” She’s tucked the sheathed knife into her belt, her hand resting on the handle as if the thing would disappear if she wasn’t touching it.

“Nope.” Link yawns widely enough for his jaw to pop. He shakes himself, pinching the skin of his palm between thumb and forefinger to stave off drowsiness. “We’ll be lucky if we get to Angier today.”

“That’s almost twenty miles away,” Rhett says from behind them. “Over six hours if we don’t take any breaks.”

“Harnett County!” Link chuckles. “The homeland.”

The day is clear and pleasant again, with a hint of summer humidity -  almost enough to lull him into a false sense of security if he ignores the occasional wrecked house or car. The road cuts through farmland now, curving between fields of tobacco and corn hemmed in by trees. They haven’t seen a whiptail in a few miles, which Link takes as a good sign.

They’re passing a corn field now. Link finds a small measure of peace in the ruler-straight rows, each as evenly spaced as the last. As they walk, he counts the rows and the clean spaces between that are full of nothing but the view of the trees at the far end of the field. It’s reassuring. The corn still grows, even when the farmers are long gone. If they ever return, their crops will still be here.

“Did you and Pop ever live in Angier?” Nina asks.

“No, we lived further south. Buies Creek.”

“Are we gonna go through there?”

Link shakes his head. “Too far east.”

He’s not sure if he would have wanted to see their hometown, anyway. He has a vague picture of the town in his mind, of Campbell University and the homes and fields beyond. The places he and Rhett explored as children are there somewhere; he knows he can recall them if he tries hard enough. If he was to return there, to find the place deserted and crumbling and overrun with creatures, he doesn’t think he could bear it.

Then at the last row of corn, he sees it.

A caddy.

For a moment, he can’t move. His head fills with fear as he goes cold all over, vision narrowing until he can see nothing else but the thing, its skin as gray as the fur of the beast they’d encountered the day before. It doesn’t see them yet, its bulbous head turned away from the road. Link remembers that caddies have excellent hearing but poor vision, often fixating on shiny objects; this one was staring at a tractor beside the field, at the windshield that reflected the sun.

Link stops in his tracks, puts out a hand to stop Nina as well. He’s aware of Rhett coming up silently beside him, handgun already drawn. They share a quick look, and Rhett nods.

Rhett takes Nina’s hand, quickly and gently pulling her back towards the trees on the opposite side of the road. Link stays where he is, quietly removing his backpack and taking his gun from its holster. He raises his gun and slides his finger over the trigger, his heart hammering so hard he thinks he might faint.

Link can’t imagine hurting another person, but there’s a part of him that takes a perverse pleasure in killing monsters. He realized this months ago, after he killed his first creature. He was sick for days at the memory of his blade tearing through flesh and lodging in bone, the screaming from the beast as it fell, the bile rising in his throat as he ended its life. But while the edge of those memories has faded with time, the thrill of the adrenaline rush is sharp as ever. He feels it coursing through him now, power in his veins, steadying his arm as he takes careful aim.

He doesn’t want to miss.

He squeezes the trigger

Three things happen in rapid succession. A gunshot sounds, the recoil jarring his entire arm. A bestial shriek from somewhere to Link’s right. The sound of corn rustling violently as _two_ caddies dash onto the road.

For a moment, Link feels lightheaded.

He missed.

Slowly, he backs away from the two creatures on the road, his teeth bared, gun wavering from one beast to the other as they close in on him. Caddies stand on two spindly legs, their moves quick and juddering, humanoid beings with massive heads and the twitchiness of a fly. Their massive strides make them almost impossible to outrun.

Another pair of gunshots ring out. One of the caddies crumples in a heap. The second is already leaping over it to get at Rhett, who lunges up from the ditch and fires again. Nina...

Where is Nina?

Link’s stomach turns. She was behind Rhett. He’d just seen her there, and now she was gone.

“Hey!”

The sound of her voice brings both relief and cold horror. She’s on the road, further down from them, her knife flashing in the sun.

“Over here!”

“No,” Link tries to say, but the caddy is already running at her, gangly limbs twitching. He raises his gun again. It’s moving too quickly for him to aim, and he’s afraid that if he lets off a shot, he’ll hit Nina. He drops his gun and runs.

Nina doesn’t move.

Link doesn’t think he’s ever moved so fast in his life.

“Hey.” It’s his turn to yell. “ _Hey!_ ”

The caddy’s head whips around to face him, mouth open in a shriek. Its dark eyes look almost human, but Link is close enough to see three rows of tiny, pointed teeth.

The caddy screams again, the sound high and sharp enough to pierce right through him. Link doesn’t care. His feet pound against the blacktop as he runs and he bares his teeth and screams back.

_don’t you dare don’t you dare DON’T YOU DARE HURT HER._

He lunges forward, arms landing on slick gray flesh, and the two of them fall hard on the road.

Somehow he gets his knife in his hand. They roll over and over, Link stabbing at whatever presents itself. He forgets everything else. His head fills with static, anger, terror, and the only way to release those emotions is to hurt the only thing he can.

He’s still stabbing the thing when Rhett drags him away, an undercurrent of soothing words slowly bearing him back to the present. The mist clears from his eyes.

Inexplicably, the day is as bright as ever. At some point, he lost his glasses. He’s covered in the creature’s blood , so dark it’s almost black on his green t-shirt. Someone’s gasping for air; Link slowly realizes it’s him. Nina still hasn’t moved from the center of the road, but silent tears are streaming down her face.

“You were supposed to stay out of the way!” Link yells. “You could’ve gotten—”

“You and Pa were gonna get hurt!” she yells back. “I don’t wanna see you die!”

“Both of you, stop.” Rhett’s voice is firm. “This isn’t the time to argue.”

His legs feel rubbery, but Link shakes Rhett off him. The chemical stench of the blood on his clothes is nauseating. He retrieves his backpack from where he’d dropped it and picks out a clean shirt. He moves almost robotically, his mind still numb. Later he’ll feel fear, but right now he’s furious.

Nina and Rhett join him as he pulls on his backpack again. Nina hands him his glasses, which are miraculously unscratched.

“Never do that again,” he says quietly to her.

She wipes the tears from her face with a hand, refusing to look at him. The set of her jaw tells him that she’s furious too.

“We need to keep moving,” Rhett says as Link pulls his backpack back on. “Caddies travel in—”

From the cornfield, an inhuman scream pierces the air, followed by another and another.

There’s no time for words. Rhett nudges both Link and Nina ahead of him and they run, feet pounding hard on the asphalt.

There’s no use in trying to outrun a caddy. They know how to flank their prey. The only chance at surviving an encounter with them is to hide somewhere and hope that the creatures move on.

Link points out a ranch house with red siding, set back a little ways from the road, and they tear across the grass for it. Behind them, the screams intensify. They seem to come from everywhere, the high-pitched keening that sounds a bit too wild to be human.

Rhett barrels through the door and the others tumble in behind him, barricading the door with anything they can find: chairs and an ottoman and two end tables. They huddle together in the front room and wait.

The silence is nerve-wracking. Every now and then, there’s a shriek from the direction of the road.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Rhett whispers. “Everything we read said that monsters are nocturnal, right?”

Link can only nod.

Eventually, the sounds fade away altogether and the silence turns peaceful again.

Rhett lets out a shaky sigh and lowers his head to his hands. He’s trembling almost as badly as Link.

All the energy seems to have drained from Link’s limbs. He drops his gun and throws his arms around Nina. Rhett does, too. Nina holds herself stiffly for a while before finally resting her head on Link’s shoulder.

“Please don’t do that again,” he whispers.

“Okay.”

“Promise you’ll let Pa and me take care of the monsters for you.”

She hesitates, shoulders stiffening, but she only says, “I promise,” in a quiet voice.

~

No one wants to talk that night. The discovery of running water in the house does little to raise their spirits, as chances are that the water isn’t clean enough to drink. Still, they take brief showers in the pink-tiled bathroom. Link feels immeasurable relief as the water hits him, washing away blood and sweat and grime.

When he steps out of the shower and wipes condensation from the mirror, the face that looks back is almost unrecognizable. The man there has dark circles around wild eyes and overgrown scruff for a beard. He rakes his hair back from his face with a hand, but that does little to improve his appearance.

“If I met you on the street, we probably wouldn’t speak,” he says softly.

The man in the mirror looks back at him, eyes round with worry.

With a muttered curse, Link turns away. He doesn’t know why he cares how he looks anyway. Rhett managed to embrace having messy hair and overgrown beard; why couldn’t he do the same?

The house is full of frilly pink and yellow drapery, ceramic figurines of children and angels cluttering up every surface beneath a thick layer of dust. Rhett points out the many framed photos as well, all featuring either a white-haired couple or several small children.

“Grandkids,” Nina says.

Rhett doesn’t speak for a moment. “Yeah.”

Link doesn’t have the energy to tell them to stop poking around tonight. He doesn’t want to think about the people who used to live here; he just wants sleep.

Much to his relief, Rhett volunteers to take first watch. As soon as he climbs into his sleeping bag, he’s finally able to relax the tension he’s been carrying in his shoulders.

“Dad.” Nina’s muffled voice from the other side of the room.

“Yeah?” he says with a cavernous yawn.

“I’m sorry.”

He rolls over to look at her. The living room is dark except for the battery-powered lantern by her sleeping bag, the light throwing the furniture and her face into sharp relief. Her eyes are hidden in deep shadow, and he’s briefly reminded of something skeletal and unmoving. He blinks and the image is gone, but the unsettling thought won’t leave his mind.

“What are you sorry for, honey?”

Nina shrugs, looks away. “I got scared ‘n wanted to help, but I messed stuff up.”

“You didn’t—” Link cuts himself off. He scrambles out of his sleeping bag and crosses the room to sit beside her. She was usually as confident as Rhett, but sometimes he felt as if he were speaking to a younger version of himself.

“What’s wrong?”

It takes some gentle prodding on his part, but he finally gets her to speak.

“Dad, do you think I get in the way?”

The question is asked matter-of-factly with little trace of emotion. It’s the way Rhett would have asked him something profound back when they were kids, just blurt it out with no preamble.

“You don’t get in the way,” he tells her around a sudden lump in his throat. “You never get in the way. Why are you thinking that?”

“I haven’t done anything useful since we left,” she says softly. “When we were there, I had chores and stuff to do. I don’t have anything now.”

“What, you mean you _want_ chores and schoolwork?” Link said, his voice full of exaggerated shock. “Because that can be arranged, little lady.”

“No, Dad!” she giggles, the sound sweeter than anything Link has heard in days. “I just want to help you and Pa and not have to hide all the time.”

“Better hid than dead,” Link murmurs.

Nina looks up at him, her eyebrows knit together. “What?”

“Um.” Link shakes his head, words coming in a rush. “Never mind. We’ll talk about this tomorrow, okay? Get some sleep. If you need anything, just wake me up or get Pa.”

She nods, accepts a brief hug, and climbs into her sleeping bag.

“Night, Dad.”

“Night, honey.”

Link returns to his side of the room. Once in his sleeping bag, he stares up at the ceiling, his eyes unexpectedly wet.

Before he drifts off to sleep, he makes a mental note to discuss this with Rhett in the morning.

~

One moment he’s dreaming of lying on the beach with a salty breeze in his hair, the next moment he jerks awake as someone twists his arms behind his back.

There are shadowy figures in the room. Flashlights. Rough voices.

“Rhett!” Link tries to struggle, but his legs are pinned down by someone much heavier than him. He starts to panic. A sob bubbles up before he can stop it. “Nina!”

The person above him chuckles.

“Hold still, now.” It’s a deep voice, drawling and unfamiliar.

“Get off me!” Link yells, squirming as he tries to topple the man from him. “Get the hell off!” Someone smacks him across the face, but he only curses and struggles some more.

“Will you be quiet!” The man sighs. “Help me with this one, Quentin.”

Link yelps as a hand yanks him by the hair, tears pricking his eyes as he’s forced to turn.

Nina and Rhett are already bound and sitting against the opposite wall. There’s blood oozing from a bruise on Rhett’s temple, his eyelids fluttering weakly. Nina is wide-eyed but unmoving.

“If you don’t shut the fuck up,” a lilting female voice says, “I’m gonna hit the girl next.”

Link stops fighting.

“Much better.”

The pull on his hair is released. He stares up at a woman with a shock of green hair above a delicately smiling face.

“I didn’t think we’d be finding any people up this way,” she says thoughtfully as his wrists are cinched together with nylon rope. “Not since the shambler moved in.”

She climbs to her feet and dusts her hands off. “Get them up.”

Link is dragged to his feet. Someone’s put his hiking shoes back on his feet, he notices. He shakes off the rough hands on him. “I can stand on my own,” he snaps.

He does a quick headcount. There are six other people in the room besides Rhett, Nina, and himself. All are wearing black and carrying guns much larger than his or Rhett’s.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” the woman, Quentin apparently, says with a quick clap. She’s several inches shorter than Link, but her body language speaks of one in charge. “We’re going to leave, and we’re going to move quickly and quietly. We got a lot of ground to cover and there are some caddies in the area. If _any_ of you make noise—” She glares pointedly at Link. “—you’re getting left behind, all tied up as a nice li’l gift for them. Got it?”

“Where are we going?” Link demands. Rhett still seems dazed, his face pale as he sways on his feet.

The woman grins. “Gonna see my sister. She wants—”

Something massive smashes into the wall outside, hard enough to dislodge chunks of plaster. Quentin and the others draw their guns as a roar echoes through the house.

“Three at the door, three at the windows,” she says quickly. All trace of humor is gone from her face as she cocks her handgun.

Another crash. The wall begins to buckle. Link tastes fear, sharp as bile on his tongue. He and his family are going to die here, helpless and bound like animals in a slaughterhouse.

“Get us out of these.” Link strains against his bonds. “You’re gonna need help—”

One final impact, and the entire wall gives way in a shower of wood and plaster. In the light of the flashlights, an enormous gray-furred head pokes in, crooked teeth bared beneath a protruding nose. The monster they’d seen the previous day.

A shambler.

Up close it smells of decay and wet leaves. In the light of the flashlights it seems even bigger, towering over the people crowded in a room that suddenly seems far too small.

“Get ‘im!” Quentin yells.

Gunshots. The shambler roars and thrashes, dislodging chunks of the wall around it, knocking aside furniture and bodies alike. Link scrambles backwards until he hits the opposite wall, then shimmies along it towards the door. Rhett and Nina are close behind.

He clumsily opens the door with bound hands and stumbles outside with the others at his heels. The night is cloudless and moonlit, a stark contrast to the chaos behind them. They stagger awkwardly away from the house, wrists still bound.

“Wait,” Nina gasps. “My knife.”

“We’re not going back in there,” Link snaps.

“I have my knife!” she says in a rush. “To cut the ropes. They didn’t take it.”

Link stops.

“Oh.”

With some difficulty, Link grabs the knife from her belt. He holds it blade-up as Rhett and Nina slice their ropes apart, then waits impatiently as Rhett frees him.

“Nice work,” Rhett tells Nina quietly. Link pulls her in for a quick embrace.

Then they run, heedless of gunshots and screams behind them as they rush away from the house and into the moonlit night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a [map](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Youngsville,+North+Carolina/Shotwell,+North+Carolina/Clayton,+North+Carolina/35.5849177,-78.664798/@35.6639515,-78.7264281,11z/data=!4m21!4m20!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac529c33313e87:0xb17abbbbca16abf9!2m2!1d-78.4744439!2d36.0248732!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac42ef68b2ae35:0x304e91746d6a1033!2m2!1d-78.4449999!2d35.73694!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac5e7ec3b55aff:0x141ffd11bcfef2f6!2m2!1d-78.4563914!2d35.650711!1m0!3e2) of the approximate distance they've traveled so far. I've fudged a few things regarding distance traveled and landscape for the sake of the story, of course, but tried to keep things roughly the same as they are irl.


	4. Parched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image source](https://ak6.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/12665408/thumb/1.jpg)

 

Rhett isn’t sure how they survive that night. He remembers struggling to keep up with Link and Nina’s swifter strides, his head throbbing with each step on the asphalt. The cacophony behind them melts into a chorus of screams violently cut short by what sounds like a small explosion. Rhett pictures the house in shambles, bodies strewn in the grass. He shakes his head, and instantly regrets it as the world reels around him.

None of them speak. The only light comes from the moon. Rhett starts seeing figures in the fields and woods around them: faces in twisted branches and boughs nodding in the light breeze, misty shapes twining above open pastures.

At some point, they’ve stopped running, probably following Link’s lead. He walks ahead, fists clenched as if he means to punch anything else that gets in their way.

By the time the rosy haze of sunrise begins to lighten the sky, their walking has slowed to a tired shuffle.

They’ve almost reached Angier, but there are few houses in sight. Housing developments crop up on both sides of the road, separated by stretches of woods and open fields. The last time they were here was a few years ago to visit some old friends. Rhett is surprised to see so many homes still standing.

The air is already thick with the promise of humidity to come. He’s more aware of the heat now that they have no water, the pleasant day suddenly seeming ominous. There aren’t even clouds to shield them from the sun beating down. His stomach growls, but he tries to think about the multiverse instead of food.

There’s a universe in which he’s floating in a swimming pool now.

The thought doesn’t help.

“Hey, Pop?”

“Yeah.” Rhett wipes sweat from his forehead, his attention on the road ahead.

“I-I don’t feel so good.”

Both Rhett and Link turn toward her. Nina’s standing still, one hand on her forehead and the other wrapped around herself. She’s shivering.

“We should stop,” Link says.

“No!” she protests, eyes going wide. “I can walk.” She steps forward and almost collapses.

“Easy, now.” Rhett’s by her side in an instant. Her face is cool to the touch, but her lips are ashen and sweat streams down her temples. Rhett lifts her off her feet, ignoring the pained twinge from his back. She’s lighter than he expects, frail beneath her oversized blue t-shirt and jeans. Rhett hasn’t carried her in years, not since his back began troubling him.

“I can walk, Pa,” Nina protests again, but he can hear the tears in her voice.

Link holds out both arms. “Do you want me to...”

Rhett shakes his head. “I got her. We need to get some water.”

Half a mile down the road, they come upon a housing development, its brick sign reading “SUNNY PINES.” The road into the development is blocked by a twisted mess of car and bicycle parts and what looks like the remains of several folding chairs. A porcupine’s worth of spikes is affixed to the top of the obstruction.

“There have _got_ to be people here,” Rhett says.

Link hangs back. “What if they’re with—”

“Link. We need water.”

Now that he’s said it, his mind fills with a flurry of worried thoughts. Link sighs.

“Okay. You’re right.”

Up close, the blockade is even bigger. Rhett guesses that it must be ten or twelve feet tall. All its metal parts were fused together and then sanded down, presumably to prevent there being any footholds for intruders.

There’s an intercom embedded in the wall and a camera beside it. Link glances back at Rhett, who nods. He pushes the button.

A moment later, a burst of static comes from the speaker.

“Who’s out there?” A low, masculine voice. Rhett imagines a bearded, middle-aged man with a beer in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Hi,” Link says. “My family’s just passing through, but we, uh, ran into some trouble last night. Lost almost everything. Do you have any water to spare?”

Silence. Rhett and Link exchange glances. Link almost speaks into the intercom again when the voice finally answers.

“Keep movin.’”

Rhett goes cold. Link looks at him, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Did they really...” Link turns back to the intercom. “We just need some water! Our daughter...” His voice almost breaks. “She’s not doing well!”

“Why is Dad yelling?” Nina whispers against Rhett’s shoulder.

“Keep movin.’” The voice is impassive. “Last time I fell for the sick child trick, we lost eight people to goddamn thieves.”

“But—”

“Move. The fuck. Along.” A deeper voice. The intercom crackles with the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked.

Link looks back at Rhett.

“They can’t... we just need water...” In a sudden burst of rage, Link’s fist thuds against the wall. “Just throw us a bottle or _something_!”

“Let’s go,” Rhett says quietly, even as he swallows down his own panic. “We can check other houses.”

It takes some coaxing to get Link to move; he seems ready to tear the wall apart with his bare hands. They’ve gone a few steps away when the voice on the intercom speaks again.

“Don’t come back. Won’t be so nice next time.”

Link whirls around.

“ _Fuck_ you!” he spits, words sharp as broken glass. “Fuck _all_ of you.”

The intercom is silent.

“Just keep walking, Link.” Rhett hopes his voice isn’t trembling.

They leave Sunny Pines behind. Link’s hands are balled at his sides, his jaw clenched in fury. Rhett hasn’t seen him this worked up since he almost punched a classmate in high school for mocking Rhett’s fear of heights.

“I’ll be okay, Dad.”

Nina’s voice is barely audible, but Link hears it. He sighs, the fight leaving him all at once.

“Let me carry her,” he says.

“I can walk,” Nina insists weakly, pushing away from Rhett’s grasp. “Look.”

Rhett puts her down. She takes a few staggering steps and heaves into the grass by the road.

“Shit.” Link reaches her first this time, his anger forgotten. “It’s okay, honey,” he says over the sound of her sobs. “We’ll get you some water. Just hold on.”

He carries her more easily than Rhett ever could. Rhett struggles to keep up, his back now aching with each step. They go a short distance down the road to the cluster of trailers and small houses scattered amidst the trees.

“Stay here,” Link says firmly. He sets Nina down beside Rhett in the shade of an overhanging tree and darts towards the nearest trailer. Its door is unlocked. Moments later, he emerges and plunges into another one. Then another and another.

When he returns to Rhett and Nina, he’s sweating, his face red and blotchy with exertion.

“No water. Anywhere. I bet those assholes took everything from here.”

“Calm down, Link.”

“I don’t _want_ to calm down!” Link is ready to fight again.

Rhett clenches his fists. “You’re not helping anyone when you’re panicking!”

“Of _course_ I’m panicking. My daughter’s freakin’ dehydrated.”

“Please stop.” Nina’s curled up on her side, both hands over her ears, fat droplets of sweat trickling down her face. “My head hurts.”

Rhett falters at the sound of her voice. He promised Nina that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her on this trip. Dehydration wasn’t a concern before, when they carried bottled water with them. But what can he do? They can’t traipse all over town in the sun and hope to find water somewhere.

The world around him seems to shrink. There’s Link, glaring at him, red-faced and ready to fight. There’s Nina, on the verge of something worse than heat exhaustion.

And Rhett stands there, mind whirling through a thousand ideas that all seem impossible.

“Excuse me!”

An unfamiliar voice. Rhett instinctively shields his family behind him. If nothing else, he can fight.

A woman stands on the other side of the road. She’s leaning against a tree, wearing a straw hat, sunglasses, and a dingy pair of overalls. A sawed-off shotgun is cradled in one arm.

“Who are you?” Link demands.

She ignores him and points at Nina. “You need help.”

It’s not a question.

“Yes,” Rhett says quickly. From the corner of his eye, he sees Link turn so sharply to glare at him that he can almost feel his protests.

“I have water and food.” The woman straightens. “Come with me.”

~

Her name is Cassie. She warns them not to try anything funny, but doesn’t say much else until they’re walking up the gravel drive to her house, a one-story brick building amidst a stand of pine trees.

“Watch your step. Got a lot of traps set up around the house.”

“You set traps?” Rhett asks.

“Yeah.” Cassie glances sidelong at him. “Me and my girlfriend.”

The windows are protected by iron grates and the front door is secured with multiple locks. She opens these with practiced twists from the ring of keys she produces from her pocket. Inside, Rhett can’t help the gasp that escapes him.

There’s a massive painting of a monster’s face on the wall. Rhett doesn’t recognize it. The face is flat, rectangular, and tawny, with solid black orbs for eyes, a long, goat-like nose, and no visible mouth.

“I killed one of those,” Cassie says in response to their stares. “Not fun.” She hands them both plastic water bottles, their cloudy surfaces refreshingly cold. “There’s more where those came from.”

The house is sparsely furnished, with few decorations beside the monster painting on the wall in the main room. Cassie suggests they put Nina in her room, since it’s the only one with a bed.

Nina doesn’t want to drink, burying her face in the pillow when Rhett offers her some water. He almost snaps at her in frustration but bites his tongue in time. Anger won’t do any good in this situation.

Link enters the room in a rush, his face drawn tight. Wordlessly, he takes the bottle from Rhett and kneels by the bed.

“You’ll feel better if you drink something,” he says softly, brushing her braids out of her face. “I promise.”

Rhett sits beside them, hands folded uselessly in his lap. Link has never shied away from sharing his worries about parenting, but he’s always been better than Rhett at getting through to Nina in difficult times. It’s one aspect of life in which Rhett envies Link. When they first decided to adopt a child, he pictured himself as a confident father, ready to handle any setback with ease. But in times like these, he doesn’t know what to do.

Link talks to her a little, gentle and reassuring, and finally convinces her to drink some water.

“Can you stay with me, Dad?” she whispers.

“I’ll stay until you fall asleep. Then Pa and I will be in the kitchen, okay? If you need anything, just yell and we’ll be here in two seconds.”

“Okay.”

She falls asleep soon after, Link’s hand still in hers.

~

They talk with Cassie at the kitchen over some dried fruit she took from cabinets stocked with canned food. Rhett lets Link do most of the talking; his head is still aching.

“You tried to get through to the hoarders at Sunny Pines?” Cassie laughs mirthlessly. Without her hat and sunglasses, she looks worn out. Short brown hair atop a face pinched with worry, an expression Rhett has seen on almost every person since the monsters emerged. She sits in her chair with one knee drawn up to her chest, as if for comfort.

“Screw those people,” Link murmurs vehemently. “He could’ve tossed us some water over the gate.”

“They were looking out for their own,” Rhett suggests. “But yeah. Screw ‘em.”

“I don’t mess with them,” Cassie says. “They’re a bunch of selfish bastards and they picked every house around here clean.”

In the silence that follows, Rhett decides to speak.

“So what’s going on? I always thought monsters were nocturnal.”

“That’s been changing.” Cassie sighs. Her voice is monotone, as exhausted as her appearance. “The electricity and internet don’t work too often around here, but from what I’ve been able to find, new monsters are showing up all over the place.

“Like that thing on the wall?”

Cassie glances up at it, then quickly away. “Hellwalker.” At their confused looks, she explains, “A massive goat on two legs, basically. A literal devil.”

Rhet imagines his reflection in those deep black eyes and can’t help shivering.

“Worse than a shambler?” Link asks, his mouth full.

“I guess so.” Cassie laughs again. “They don’t move fast, but they’re telepathic.” She gestures at the head on the wall. “That one cornered my girlfriend outside the house. Just pinned her there with a stare. I came out and shot it in the belly and it went down pretty easily. My girlfriend painted that afterwards.”

“Where’s your girlfriend?”

The moment of silence that follows almost makes Rhett uncomfortable until he realizes that Cassie is holding back tears.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes with a hand. The words leave her in a sudden rush. Her girlfriend was killed a couple of months ago after leaving one morning to scavenge from the houses downtown.

“I heard her screaming and ran out to help, but by that time, she was gone. Never saw the thing that got her, never found a trace of her body except for that hat I was wearing.” Cassie points a trembling finger at a small framed picture on the wall, of her and another woman with long blond hair, their heads tilted together. “Stevie was her name.”

“Sorry for your loss,” Link says gently.

“I’ll be fine.” Cassie shakes her head. “Stuff like this probably happens all the time now. But I should’ve gone with her, y’know? Should’ve made sure she was safe.” She clears her throat, making a visible effort to suppress her tears. “You’ve probably had some close encounters like that, huh?”

Rhett remembers the shambler and its terrifying roar, the caddy charging full speed at him. He shivers. “A couple of ‘em, yeah.”

“We almost got kidnapped, too,” Link says. He looks at Rhett, who nods, before telling the story of the previous night’s encounter. Cassie listens, nodding slowly.

“Quentin with green hair?” she murmurs. “Never heard of her, but I haven’t exactly run into too many people lately. Good thing, I guess, with how crazy things have gotten.” Her gaze falls on Rhett. “So tell me about yourselves. How’d you end up here? You’re married, right, and that girl’s your daughter?”

The conversation slowly turns to more pleasant topics. They talk about life before the monsters, reminiscing on happier memories. Cassie takes them outside on the porch and explains that the monsters largely avoid the house, since so many of them have been hurt or killed by the traps.

“They’re just like normal animals in a way,” she murmurs. “Kill enough of them in the same place and they learn to stay away from it.”

They check on Nina a few times, but she only wakes up long enough to drink some water and hug both of her dads before drifting off again.

~

Cassie’s home has running water but she explains that the electricity has been out for months. After a shower that leaves Rhett feeling refreshed, he joins Link in the spare bedroom. There’s no bed there, but Cassie offers a couple of sleeping bags, as well as a battery-powered fan to kept the worst of the night’s heat at bay. She pauses in the doorway, one hand on her hip.

“You’re welcome to stay until your daughter gets better,” she tells them. “But after that, I’ll have to ask you to leave. My food supply isn’t meant to support four people.”

“Understood,” Link says. “Thank you.”

She closes the door quietly behind her.

And they’re alone. Sharing a bedroom, which hasn’t happened in days. Back in the shelter, one of them usually got up during the night to make sure everything was secure, and while traveling, they’ve slept in shifts. Rhett is glad to not be sleeping alone tonight.

The act of climbing into the sleeping bag beside Link brings vague memories of their younger days. Summer nights, fireflies glowing during backyard camp-outs, barefoot walks down trickling creeks. He remembered deciding that he wanted to marry Link on a summer night like this after their first year of college. They were camping at Raven Rock, sharing a tent Link had swiped from his dad’s house. It was just the two of them there, night sounds providing a backdrop to heavy breathing and frantic kisses, hands fumbling beneath t-shirts and shorts. When they were both spent and Link lay with his head on Rhett’s chest, Rhett found himself talking, struggling to come up with words to describe how he felt.

He finally settled for mumbling, “I think I love wanna marry you,” the words running together in one hasty breath.

“You love wanna marry me?” Link laughed softly at him. “Now what’s that mean?”

Rhett’s face was hot. “You know.” He squirmed a little. “I-I love you and I wanna marry you,” he mumbled.

Link laughed again later when Rhett proposed after college graduation, but there were considerably more tears of happiness involved.

Rhett’s acutely aware of Link beside him now, of the soft rise and fall of his breathing in the dark. When he turns his head, he’s greeted by his husband’s barely visible profile. Link is staring up at the ceiling, one hand behind his head, the other resting on his stomach. He’s taken off his glasses, and his eyes are pools of darkness.

Rhett reaches out and brushes his fingers against Link’s arm.

Link turns his head. His face is impassive, but Rhett knows he’s thinking by the way his lips are drawn together.

 _Do you remember,_ Rhett wants to say. _Do you remember the night I said I loved you?_ He can’t find the words, though. There are so many other things they should be discussing, about Nina, about their plans for the remainder of their travel. But Rhett doesn’t want to think about harsh realities just yet. He’s feeling sentimental. He craves that feeling of young love that spurred him to propose to Link all those years ago. He needs something warm and soothing to chase away the mental turmoil stirred up by the past few days.

He touches Link’s arm again. _Please._

When Link puts his hands behind his head, Rhett takes that as his cue to press on. He props himself up and kisses his husband briefly. The response he gets isn’t what he expected; Link’s lips barely touch his.

Rhett pulls back in confusion.

Link’s eyes are distant, even in the dark, and he turns his face aside when Rhett tries to kiss him again.

“Make it quick,” he whispers.

Rhett hesitates. “Do you not want—”

Link briefly closes his eyes, an expression of faint exasperation. “I _do_ want. Just make it quick.”

His tone makes Rhett bristle. “You don’t want me to kiss you.”

“I’m not in a kissin’ mood, Rhett!” Link squirms, hip jostling against Rhett’s thigh. “Just want you to touch me.”

Rhett leans over him again, inhaling the familiar scent of his husband. He spends some time retracing territory he hasn’t explored in days. One hand rucks up Link’s t-shirt, skimming over the warm skin there as his lips close at the base of Link’s throat. He traces the outlines of scars on Link’s torso, remnants of past creature encounters.

“Want me to give you a few more of these tonight?” he whispers.

He hears Link exhale, a quiet and shaky sound, as he traces a line down Link’s torso to his briefs. Glancing up, he sees Link’s eyes fixed dispassionately on the ceiling.

Suddenly, Rhett isn’t in the mood for this anymore; he doesn’t even have his husband’s attention. He pulls away and rolls onto his back.

“Never mind.”

“What?” Link sounds genuinely confused.

“You don’t really want to do this.” Rhett sighs. “I’m sorry. We both need to rest. Just got a little selfish is all.” He pulls the sleeping bag up and rolls over.

After a moment, he hears a rustling as Link moves in close behind him. Something firm pokes him in the back.

Rhett opens his eyes, scowling at the wall before him.

“Are you... are you _humping_ me?”

Link grunts. “Look man, you can’t just get a guy all worked up and then decide you’re not in the mood.”

“ _You_ weren’t in the mood!”

“I’m a little distracted.” One of Link’s arms curls over his chest, fingers gently cupping his pectoral muscle through his shirt. Rhett almost sighs at the touch, at Link’s warm breath on his neck. “Got a lot on my mind, with monsters roaming the countryside and my daughter being sick, y’know.”

When Rhett says nothing, he presses a kiss against the nape of his neck. “Come on, man.”

“You really scared me earlier,” Rhett says quietly.

“What d’ya mean?”

“Cursing out a guy with a shotgun.”

Link scoffs. “He was gonna let a sick child suffer.”

“Extreme circumstances bring out the worst in a lot of people. Haven’t you read _Lord of the Flies_?”

“No.” His husband pushes against him. “Come _on,_ Rhett.”

Rhett makes him wait a little. Maybe he’ll just fall asleep and leave Link squirming and frustrated behind him. But then Link rolls his hips again, slowly, making sure Rhett knows exactly where his erection is. He murmurs softly, “I’m sorry.”

Rhett can’t resist when his husband decides to be sweet. With a groan, he rolls over, heedless of the ache in his back, and pulls Link down on top of him.

He can feel the curve of Link’s smile when they kiss this time, which assuages some of his worry. There’s nothing special about it, just the familiar way their mouths move together that brings with it a sense of comfort. He gets fingers tangled in his hair, gently caressing his scalp as Link rocks against him.

They’re both tired. This isn’t a night to do anything special. They’re in a familiar position with Link straddling Rhett; less strain on his back this way. Rhett lets him set the pace, lets him grind his hips deep and slow. He traces his hands along Link’s body from back to hip and down the sides of his legs. When Link finally tugs their briefs aside to get a hand around them both, Rhett closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh of relief.

Neither of them last very long. Link strokes them both over the edge, through the sound of stifled moans and breath turned ragged. Link keeps his gaze fixed on Rhett as he comes, eyes momentarily glazing over. Rhett follows soon after, digging his hands into flesh hard enough to bruise. Weakly, Link moves his fist around them a few more times before they both go still.

Rhett’s still catching his breath when Link springs up and quietly pads from the room, returning with a roll of toilet paper.

“I told Cassie you had a runny nose,” he says as he cleans them both up. There’s still a distant look in his eyes afterward, but some of the tension has left his face.

Rhett snorts. “You could’ve just told her that you jerked us both off and apologize for doing it on her sleeping bags,” he offers.

Link says nothing, but his lips turn up in a half-smile. With a small measure of surprise, Rhett realizes that it’s been weeks since he’s seen that expression on his face. Link catches his eye, one hand reflexively moving to adjust his glasses before he remembers that he took them off.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Rhett can’t help grinning. “I just love you, is all.”

In the morning, when they emerge sleepily from the bedroom, Cassie greets them from the kitchen table without looking up from the gun she’s been cleaning. She tells them to keep the sleeping bags. Link blushes but Rhett laughs hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [map](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Youngsville,+North+Carolina/Shotwell,+North+Carolina/Clayton,+North+Carolina/35.5849177,-78.664798/Angier,+NC/@35.7639056,-78.7912703,10.93z/data=!4m27!4m26!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac529c33313e87:0xb17abbbbca16abf9!2m2!1d-78.4744439!2d36.0248732!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac42ef68b2ae35:0x304e91746d6a1033!2m2!1d-78.4449999!2d35.73694!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac5e7ec3b55aff:0x141ffd11bcfef2f6!2m2!1d-78.4563914!2d35.650711!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac8685b5f6f711:0x55fbee439f06c52!2m2!1d-78.7391813!2d35.5071044!3e2) of their approximate travels so far. Some things have been changed for the sake of the story.


	5. Split

Nina is back on her feet in the morning, shame-faced and quiet. The four of them are at the kitchen table, nibbling at an assortment of dried food. For once, Rhett isn’t hungry. He misses the taste of freshly made pancakes with syrup. His gaze wanders from the table, his mind drifting to memories of waking up on Saturday mornings to the smell of bacon. On rare occasions, Link would get up first, and Rhett would enter the kitchen to find a frustrated Nina trying to show him how to make breakfast. He could almost taste the bacon and eggs if he tried hard enough.

Rhett’s eyes finally settle on the hellwalker painting hanging in the living room, visible from his chair, and all warm thoughts instantly vanish. He could almost imagine those eyes watching him.

“Why do you keep that thing up there?” he asks Cassie.

“A reminder,” she says. “Anytime I start getting too comfortable here, I just have to look at that thing to remember that horrible stuff is happening in the world.”

“Kinda morbid,” Link says.

Cassie shrugs. “It’s the world we live in. Might as well be prepared.” She turns her attention to Nina, who hasn’t spoken all morning. “Know how to use that thing?” She gestures towards Nina’s knife with the half-eaten piece of beef jerky in her hand.

As everyone’s attention turning towards her, Nina almost seems to shrink towards Rhett. He’s ready to put his arm around her, but she pulls away at the last moment and sits up straight.

“Yeah,” she says in a small voice. It’s unconvincing.

“I can show you some moves,” Cassie offers. “How to take down a caddy if you don’t have a gun at hand. I’ve learned a few tricks over the past few months.”

Nina’s face brightens. “Really?”

Rhett sees Link about to protest, his mouth opening, but he catches himself the same way Nina did, lowering his head and cleaning his glasses on his t-shirt instead.

“If your dads don’t mind.” Cassie grins weakly at Rhett. “You’re welcome to join, too.” She downs the last of the beef jerky and wipes her hand on her jeans before getting to her feet. She’s wearing overalls again today, this time with a white t-shirt underneath.

“Go for it.” Rhett nudges Nina’s arm. “Just don’t hurt yourself.”

Nina looks to Link for his input and gets a quiet nod in response.

“Yeah!” She jumps to her feet, looking the happiest that Rhett has seen her since leaving the shelter. “Thank you!” she calls back to them as she follows Cassie outside.

Rhett lets the screen door swing shut before speaking again. “I’m surprised you didn’t have anything to say about that.” 

Through the barred kitchen window, Rhett watches Cassie string up a heavy-looking burlap sack on the back porch. Nina hastily ties her braids into a messy bun before drawing her knife. She’s bouncing from foot to foot, full of sudden energy.

“She told me something that made me worry,” Link says. “The night we got kidnapped.” He draws one knee up to his chest as if for comfort. “She asked me if she gets in the way.”

The words send a pang through Rhett. He and Nina have a lot in common, but sometimes she worries like Link. It hurts to think about her lying awake at night, anxious and afraid.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her no, of course! I don’t know where she got that idea from.”

“Well, you  _ did _ yell at her—”

“Eh.” Link waves him silent. “She was fittin’ to get herself killed.”

Rhett keeps going, even though he knows he should stop. “Taking your anger out on her probably made things worse.”

“I  _ know _ that, Rhett.” There’s acid in Link’s voice. “You don’t need to lecture me.”

In the silence that follows, Rhett mentally kicks himself. He knows better than to provoke his husband, especially in their current situation, but he almost can’t help it sometimes. Then Link groans, lowering his head to his knee.

“I know,” he says more softly. “I wish I hadn’t done that. But maybe her spending time with Cassie might help her confidence a bit? Might keep her from feeling useless? I don’t know what else to do. I meant to tell you about that earlier, but then things got crazy.”

With effort, Rhett gets up from his seat. He shuffles barefoot around the table and rests his hands on Link’s shoulders. As he begins kneading the tense muscles there, Link sighs and lets his head loll back against Rhett’s stomach. He winces as Rhett goes to work on a particularly large knot, but is otherwise silent.

Ever since the world fell apart, it’s been rare for Link to let Rhett do anything for him. He always wants to be on top and in control. Rhett usually doesn’t mind this, but looking down at the top of his husband’s overgrown hair, thinking of the lines between his eyebrows and the gray patches in his stubble, Rhett realizes that letting Link shoulder the bulk of familial responsibilities is not healthy.

“Didn’t mean to lecture you,” he says gently. “I think you have the right idea.”

It’s all Link needs to hear, that small bit of approval. He sags against Rhett, reaching up with one hand to pull him down for a brief kiss. When they break apart, he grins up at Rhett, shimmying his shoulders a little.

“You ain’t done yet, are you?”

Rhett resumes his backrub with vigor, grinning at the sounds Link makes in response.

On the porch, Cassie is performing a slow sweeping motion with one arm and Nina is doing the same beside her, knife in hand. Cassie stops to slightly adjust her stance.

“How’s your back?” Link asks after a moment.

“Better,” Rhett says. It’s not entirely true. His back has been aching steadily for several days despite his morning stretches, but he tells himself that it’s not a big deal. Mind over matter. He can handle a small pain in his back. It’s probably just stress-induced, anyway.

Outside, Nina steps back from the swinging burlap sack, turning her knife over and over in her hand. She’s nodding in response to Cassie’s instruction, the tips of her braids bobbing with each movement. Rhett remembers those days seemingly ages ago, when she wore that same expression. In the middle of a basketball game before making a critical free throw. At a martial arts tournament after bowing to her opponent. She looks just as calm and focused now and for a wild moment, Rhett feels his heart swell with pride.

He wonders if she’d be able to handle a caddy on her own.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Rhett glances down at him almost guiltily, his hands faltering mid-massage, but Link’s eyes are still closed.

“What?” Rhett says.

“You’re trying to guess how many monsters she could take down at once.” Link shakes his head slowly. “I don’t get how you’re not afraid for her safety.”

Rhett bristles at the accusation, but forces out a laugh. His thumbs are working small circles into Link’s shoulder blades. “Of course I’m afraid for her safety! I just like thinking about all the possibilities.”

“She’s only thirteen, Rhett.”

“I know.”

It hits him then. Nina is  _ thirteen _ . Barely a teenager. She should be spending her time with friends, complaining about adults and homework. She shouldn’t be concerned with pulling her weight in an apocalypse.

They spend the day helping Cassie with chores and trap maintenance around the house. Rhett stays indoors for most of the time, cleaning floors and windows, while Link and Nina help Cassie clear leaves from the gutters.

That night, he can’t sleep. It’s not unusual for him to be the one awake; even before the creatures appeared, he was always getting up to sleep on the couch when Link snored too loudly, or to fix himself a midnight snack.

Tonight, he’s worried. His back aches from the day’s activities. Beside him, Link is deep in slumber, his mouth open and limbs sprawled wide. It takes some effort for Rhett to disentangle himself, but Link doesn’t even stir.

Cassie’s on the back porch tonight, sitting up late with her shotgun across her knees. Rhett has a brief thought of going to talk to her but quickly dismisses it. He doesn’t feel up to making conversation.

The door to Cassie’s room, where Nina sleeps, is closed. Rhett pokes his head in, wanting to find some reassurance in the sight of her sleeping peacefully. She’s curled up on her side, the covers tucked beneath her chin, her face smooth and undisturbed. Rhett recalls a pediatrician telling him that Nina was small for her age. He takes a deep breath.

_ She’s only thirteen. _

When he was thirteen, he was obsessed with girls and basketball and whether or not he’d be able to sleep over at Link’s house on the weekends. He worried about an impending apocalypse too, but it was always an abstract thing. No matter how many cans of food he stashed, the apocalypse would probably never happen. It was just something he liked thinking about.

Rhett can’t imagine being thirteen in this situation.

Quietly, he closes the door and shuffles to the living room, where Cassie has left a single candle burning on the table.

The painted face of the hellwalker stares down at him. In the candlelight, it almost seems alive, the black orbs of its eyes expanding in his vision until he can see nothing else. Rhett finds himself backing towards the wall, pawing around for a light switch before he remembers Cassie telling him that the power has been out for weeks. He has a fleeting thought of Nina confronting a hellwalker, staring up at the massive goat on two legs as its eyes hold her petrified... 

He can’t let anything bad happen to her. He promised that he wouldn’t.

It takes him a moment to calm down. His hands are sweating when he finally retreats to the spare bedroom.

Link stirs as he reenters the room.

“Everythin’ okay?” he mumbles, blinking sleepily as Rhett lies down beside him.

“Yeah.” The word comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Had to get a drink.”

“Mmm.” Link rolls into his embrace without a second thought, the warm certainty of his body small comfort to Rhett’s frazzled nerves. “Just don’t pee on me.” He chuckles at his own joke and closes his eyes again, falling asleep moments later.

Rhett almost wakes him up again, but the thought of making Link worry even more is something that he wants to avoid. He’s always been good at keeping his feelings under wraps. He can handle this on his own.

So Rhett lies awake the whole night, his mind churning with fear.

~

In the morning, the sky is gray and threatening, but Link insists that they get moving. He wants them to get to Lillington early so they have time to scour the area for supplies and scout out a suitable place to camp for the night.

They say their goodbyes on the porch.

“We owe you a lot,” Rhett tells Cassie. “Our lives, basically.”

She smiles weakly. “It’s what I’d want someone to do for me or Stevie,” she says. “Golden rule and all that.”

“Sure you don’t want to come with us?” Link asks. She’d already turned down his suggestion once. “It’s probably safer in Fort Bragg than here.”

Cassie shakes her head. “If I leave, then the Sunny Pines assholes are going to take the stuff I leave behind. The last thing they need is more shit to keep to themselves. I plan on staying here as long as I can. Just to spite them, really.”

In exchange for their help, Cassie gave them a small amount of supplies, just enough to fill one backpack. One handgun, a box of ammo, three full water bottles, and a few bags of dried fruit and trail mix. And two sleeping bags.

It’s not much, but better than traveling with nothing at all. Rhett thinks wistfully of burgers and pizza and chicken nuggets and beans, wishing that there was more to eat than snack food. But he’s been perpetually hungry for months; he knows better than to complain.

“Best of luck to you,” Link tells her.

Cassie gives him and Rhett a firm handshake, an oddly formal gesture after the forced proximity of the previous days. But when she gets to their daughter, Nina almost tackles her with a hug.

“Thank you for helping us,” she says shyly.

Cassie pats her awkwardly. “No problem.”

~

A light mist of rain starts soon after they leave Angier behind, houses and ruined storefronts giving way to half-trampled tobacco fields.

“I wish Cassie would’ve come with us,” Nina says wistfully. She walks with hands in her pockets, kicking a stone ahead of them. “She could show me how to really  _ fight. _ So I can help.”

“You’ve already helped,” Rhett tells her.

Nina looks suspiciously at him.

“You have,” Link chimes in. “Without your knife, we might’ve still been tied up.” He puts his hands behind his back and mimes running awkwardly. Nina, however, doesn’t laugh.

“But Dad,  _ you _ gave me the knife. It wasn’t really me helping.”

Link and Rhett share a helpless look. It’s one they’ve shared over many small crises: Nina’s sleepless nights while teething, her bouts with fevers as a toddler, the time she came home crying because AJ Wilson turned her down when she asked him to the middle school dance. They took turns dealing with those problems; Rhett doesn’t see how this would be any different.

He tries reassuring her, but she remains skeptical. Link ends up changing the subject, telling Nina about spending summers working in his father’s tobacco fields similar to the ones around them. When she perks up and asks if he has any interesting stories, he tells of his bout with tobacco poisoning.

Rhett falls silent, his thoughts drifting to worst case scenarios and backup plans. If they get to Lillington and can’t find more food, they’ll have to make do with what they have. Mentally, he begins rationing their resources, trying to figure out the best way to make them last. His back pain is another thing that worries him. What if—

“Hey.” Link’s hand touches his arm. He’s looking up at Rhett with concern, his glasses speckled with raindrops. “You okay?”

_ He doesn’t need to stress about you on top of everything else. _

Rhett shrugs. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, trying to keep his voice light. “Just hoping the rain stops soon.”

Link squeezes his arm gently and goes back to telling Nina about tobacco. He’s in a better mood now that their daughter’s health isn’t in danger.

By the time they reach the sign announcing that they’ve reached Lillington, the rain is falling faster. It gets everywhere, running into Rhett’s eyes and soaking through his clothes. They agree to camp for the night in one of the houses downtown, on the other side of the Cape Fear River.

But when they get to the river, the bridge is gone. The road ends in broken pieces of tar that drop off suddenly to the gray water below. 

For a long moment, no one speaks. Link is the first to move. He trots to the edge of the road and examines the dirt slope down to the bank. “We can swim it.”

It’s a statement, but the question is in his eyes. Rhett hesitates.

“Wait... what happened to the bridge?” he says quietly.

It was a sturdy two-lane road that he and Link had crossed many times while visiting friends in town. He never thought it was on the verge of collapse.

It’s raining harder now. Link violently rakes his wet hair away from his face.

“Come on, Rhett. The river’s not that deep. We used to swim in this all the time.”

Rhett looks from his husband to the river and back again. The next closest bridge is several miles south of them, too far out of the way. Swimming across would be simple enough. He clenches his fists.

“Okay.”

They carefully climb down the embankment beside the road to the riverbank. Link folds his glasses and puts them in the backpack for safekeeping. He’s the first to enter the water, turning to grin at the others.

“Not too bad.”

Rhett reaches for Nina, but she shakes her head.

“I know how to swim, Pop.”

Of course she can swim. Rhett’s taken her to hundreds of swim classes over the years. Nina can swim like a fish. She plunges in ahead of them, moving steadily despite the encumbrance of her wet clothes. Gingerly, Rhett follows them, stepping carefully in the soft sand.

The chills that shiver up his spine are only partly due to the cold water, but he tells himself to relax. Halfway across, he kicks off from the bottom and begins to swim. The current is stronger than he remembers. Ahead of him, Nina yelps suddenly.

“What’s wrong?”

Nina’s voice wavers. “There’s something in the water.”

“Probably a fish.” Link is already halfway out of the water on the far side, but he wades back in towards Nina. “You’re doing good,” he says gently. “Almost there!”

“I-it felt like a finger,” she stammers, her voice high with terror. She flounders in the water suddenly, her head almost slipping beneath the surface. “Dad!”

“Stay there, I’m coming.” Rhett doesn’t like how quiet everything is, the softly falling rain the only backdrop to his voice. “Hold on to me and I’ll swim us both across.”

“Pa?” She’s on the verge of panic, her eyes wide as she frantically treads water. “I’m scared.”

Rhett swims for her, reaching for her hand. Something in his back twinges, but he ignores it. He’s going to grab her, drag her to safety, and  _ then _ he can collapse.

But it happens so quickly that he has no time to react. Nina’s face goes stiff with shock, even as she reaches for him. Then he sees it. A long pale  _ thing _ breaks the surface beside her, swift as an eel.

Without a sound, Nina is whisked beneath the surface, leaving behind nothing but ripples on the water.

For a moment, Rhett can only stare at the place where his daughter disappeared. Then a terrified sound bursts from his throat.

He thrashes in the water, desperately trying to swim downstream after her. Something soft and slimy touches his arm and he recoils in horror, opening his mouth to scream but getting nothing but a mouthful of water. He hears gunshots, feels someone pulling him along, and suddenly he’s on the bank of the river, facedown in the mud.

He tries to spring up, but a sharp pain stabs through his back and he collapses again. Link is saying things, touching him, trying to get him on his feet again, but he can’t do it. He can’t move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [map](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Youngsville,+North+Carolina/Shotwell,+North+Carolina/Clayton,+North+Carolina/35.5849177,-78.664798/Angier,+NC/Lillington,+NC/@35.7123481,-78.910034,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m33!4m32!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac529c33313e87:0xb17abbbbca16abf9!2m2!1d-78.4744439!2d36.0248732!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac42ef68b2ae35:0x304e91746d6a1033!2m2!1d-78.4449999!2d35.73694!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac5e7ec3b55aff:0x141ffd11bcfef2f6!2m2!1d-78.4563914!2d35.650711!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ac8685b5f6f711:0x55fbee439f06c52!2m2!1d-78.7391813!2d35.5071044!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ab62844533cfed:0xefacc29b3de9d3fe!2m2!1d-78.8158528!2d35.399327!3e2) of their approximate travels so far.


	6. Dread

The rain has tapered off, but the clouds linger. The sun peers between the clouds as a group of several people, wearing camo-print clothing and armed with handguns, carefully pick their way down to the river. They’re heading for a patch of blue on the bank.

A quick investigation reveals it to be the blue shirt of a girl, her body half out of the water. A massive bruise is swelling on her temple.

One of the men tilts back his baseball cap and kneels over her to check heartbeat and pulse. He raises his eyebrows at the others.

“Still breathing.”

“The hell is a kid doing down here?” someone mutters. “Lillington’s been empty for months.”

“Traveling somewhere, maybe. She has a knife.” The first man carefully begins lifting the girl from the water.

“What! No, just leave her, Ben!” another man protests. He’s fidgety, his trigger finger curling at every rustle in the undergrowth. “Kids are a waste of space.”

Scowling, Ben looks past him at the others. “Let’s go.”

“But—”

Ben brushes past him, cradling the girl in his arms.

After a few moments, the others follow him, back up the slope and away from the river.

~

Nina awakes with a gasp, limbs flailing. She’s flying through the water, slimy  _ things  _ twining around her arms and legs, water filling her mouth when she tries to scream.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay!” A warmth on her arm coalesces into a gentle hand.

She stops, blinking through panicked tears. “Dad?” Her throat feels scratchy.

It takes a moment to realize that she’s not in the river. She’s wrapped in a dry blanket, lying on her side on the floor. Her head throbs painfully when she lifts it to look around.

The room is only lit by a battery-powered lantern on the floor nearby. There’s a woman sitting beside it, her face framed by long blond hair.

“Wh-who are you?”

“Don’t be scared.” The woman’s voice is mellow and light. She laughs mirthlessly, brushing back her hair with a hand. “Actually, that’s a stupid thing for me to say. You’re scared, and me telling you to  _ not _ be scared won’t help anything. But I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“But where... where...” It’s not cold, but Nina’s shivering. She tries to sit up, but the room spins wildly enough to make her stomach turn. “Ow...”

“Hey, take it easy. You hit your head.”

Nina closes her eyes. Pa was going to take her hand and pull her to shore. She could see him swimming for her, his eyes wide. Dad was there, too, knee-deep in the water as he urged her on.

And she was just treading water, too scared to move.

“I’m Stevie,” the woman says.

Dad and Pa are probably looking for her now. Wasting time searching the river instead of going on to Fort Bragg.

She’s been a burden. Again.

More tears spill over, hastily wiped away on the back of her hand.

“What’s your name?” Stevie asks gently.

“Nina,” she says, voice trembling.

Stevie says something else, but Nina’s head is hurting too much for her to concentrate.

She wakes sometime later. A patch of overcast sky is visible through the barred window by the door. The woman — _Stevie_ , which was vaguely familiar — lies on a blanket beside it, her hands clasped behind her head.

Nina sits up carefully, but thankfully the room doesn’t spin this time. She’s still in the clothes she’d put on before leaving Cassie’s place, but her boots and socks have been laid out neatly by her feet.

She reaches for her knife and freezes. It’s gone.

“Where’s my knife?”

Stevie turns her head. She has the same tired look that Dad and Pa always have, the look of someone who hears a lot of bad news and doesn’t sleep much. “They take all weapons they find.”

“Who’s they?” Nina reaches for her socks. She’s better today now that she can think more clearly today. She has things to do. Get her knife back, find food and water, get back to the river, find Dad and Pa.

“Val’s people.” Stevie resumes her perusal of the ceiling. “The ones who stuck us here. Didn’t think they were grabbing kids, though. What’s your name? And how old are you?”

“Nina.” She gets to her feet and has to rest against the wall for a moment; her legs are still wobbly. “I’ll be fourteen in November.”

When she can stand on her own, she heads for the door. The floorboards are warped, creaking with each step.

“Where are you going?” Stevie sounds confused.

“I have to get my knife back.”

The knob won’t turn.

“But we’re  _ prisoners _ here.”

Prisoners. The word is almost incomprehensible. Prisoners wear jumpsuits and sit behind bars. She’s in a shed somewhere and the door just won’t open.

“But...” Nina tries turning the doorknob again. Her eyes are burning now. She turns to the window, almost tripping over her own feet when her head reels in protest. She can barely see outside when she stands on her toes. There’s nothing but the back of a house with cracked green siding and a lawn overgrown with weeds. Wide-eyed, she turns back to Stevie.

“Where are we? Why are we here? I need...” She takes a deep breath, trying to stifle her rising panic. Dad and Pa wouldn’t cry like babies in front of a stranger. They would ask questions, try to figure things out. They would come up with a better plan than  _ get the knife back. _

She rests her head against the wall. It still hurts. Maybe if she goes back to sleep, she’ll wake up to Dad rolling up his sleeping bag or Pa gently shaking her.

Maybe crying wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

“Hey.” Stevie’s voice is gentle. She comes to stand beside Nina at the window. “Don’t worry. Your dad’s probably looking for you right now. He—”

“They,” Nina corrects her. “I have two dads.”

“They,” Stevie repeats. “I know they’re probably looking for you. My girlfriend’s probably been looking for me.”

_ Girlfriend? _

“Wait.” Nina frowns, grasping at a memory. “Do you know someone named Cassie?”

Silence. Then Stevie grabs her by the shoulder, her eyes wide.

“Do you know Cassie?” she whispers. “My girlfriend?”

“We stayed at her house in Angier!” Nina stammers. “Before we came here.”

The intensity of Stevie’s gaze is almost frightening.

“Tell me everything, Nina.”

~

They sit on the floor side-by-side and talk. It doesn’t take them long to trade stories. Stevie was kidnapped one day after leaving home to scavenge in town, a group of camouflage-clad people descending upon her as she walked down the road. She yelled for Cassie’s help, but was quickly muffled by a hood over her face.

“This place is run by this lady named Val. She’s... she’s one of those people who saw the apocalypse as a dream come true, do you know what I mean?”

Nina isn’t sure. “A doomsday prepper?” Dad teased Pa with that phrase before the monsters appeared, when Pa came home from the store with thirty cans of beans.

Stevie wrinkles her nose. “Worse than that. She has her people going around, snapping people up left and right. She has ‘em fight monsters. It’s how she keeps herself entertained.”

Nina shivers. She  pictures a colosseum, the stands full of wildly cheering people. A man facing a shambler in the sand below, gladiator-like.

“But don’t let that scare you too much.” Stevie sounds like she’s trying too hard to be cheerful, like Pa when he came home to tell Dad and Nina that he’d been laid off by Black & Veatch. She pats Nina awkwardly on the shoulder. “Made friends with one of the guards and we came up with a plan. We’re—”

Nina jumps at a sudden knock from outside.

The door is unlocked and opened, letting in a humid wave of afternoon air. A man pokes his head in. He’s wearing a baseball cap pushed back on his forehead and carrying food that Nina has grown used to: packages of dried fruit and bottled water.

“Here,” he says quietly, handing the food to Stevie. “I tried to get some vitamins or vegetables for you guys, but they keep a tight watch on those. This was all you guys were allowed to have.” He sounds remorseful.

“Don’t worry about it, Ben.” Stevie gives Nina a nudge. “This is Nina.”

“Hey.” The man smiles at her, but the expression looks awkward on his face. It’s probably not something he does often. “Some of us found you at the river yesterday. You got pretty lucky.”

“Did you see anyone else around?” Nina asks. “Maybe a man? Or two men? Or any monsters?”

“No. Just you.”

_ Oh.  _ Nina wants to say more, but her eyes are burning again. All she manages to say around the lump in her throat is a weak, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Ben turns his attention back to Stevie, his voice brisk. “Okay listen, the fight’s tomorrow night.”

“What do we have to do?”

“Just do whatever they say. Follow the normal routine. Then wait for me to blow the perimeter fence and run like hell.” Ben glances behind him. “Shit. I hafta finish making my rounds before they wonder what’s taking so long. Good luck, guys.”

He shuts the door, leaving them alone.

~

When they first moved into the underground shelter, Pa sat Nina down for a talk. She’d been sat down for talks before, some more awkward than others. Most of these talks came after unpleasant events, like in first grade when she came home upset because she didn’t have a mom to give a card to for Mother’s Day, or in sixth grade when she’d talked back to her math teacher and had been sent to the principal’s office. Thankfully this talk was simple. Pa told her that if she ever found herself in a dangerous situation, she should not panic.

“Minimize the danger, maximize your survival.” He was pacing the kitchen of the shelter. Nina sat on the table, her legs swinging over the edge as he continued. “Stay quiet, follow instructions, observe your surroundings. Listen as much as possible. Take deep breaths. Don’t panic.”

He would have said more, but Dad came out of the bedroom then, yawning. He’d been taking a nap since he’d been up all night keeping watch aboveground.

“You don’t gotta talk so loud, Rhett,” he said, brushing his hair back with one hand.

Pa looked annoyed. “I was explaining something important to her.”

Dad’s gaze fell on Nina. “Why are you sitting on the table?”

“There are monsters outside,” Nina told him. “It doesn’t matter if I sit on the table or not.”

A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Get off the table, Nina.”

She didn’t budge. The tone of Dad’s voice meant that he was worn out. He wouldn’t care if she ignored him. She was right; he exchanged a quick embrace with Pa before snatching an energy bar from the bin beside the table and returning to his room.

“So...” Pa turned his attention back to her. He was leaning against one of the chairs, drumming his fingers on the wood. “Do you remember anything I said?”

“Um.” She thinks for a moment. “Minimize the danger and maximize my survival. And some other stuff, too.”

Pa sighed. “Well, at least you remembered something.”

~

They don’t talk much that day, the summer humidity sapping most of their energy. Nina begins explaining to Stevie how she was snatched away from her parents by an unseen water creature, but remembering the terror of that moment makes her throat constrict. Stevie quickly changes the subject to their current area. It’s a small neighborhood surrounded by woods, built less than a mile from the Cape Fear River. Most of the homes have been taken over by Val and her followers, some as residences, others as holding areas for the captured. There have been fewer captures lately, according to Ben, so Val has been ordering her people to search further.

At one point, a woman opens the door, a rifle held on her shoulder.

“Up,” she says impatiently. “And don’t try anything funny or you’ll get a bullet through the brain.”

Nina looks nervously at Stevie, who gestures for her to follow.

“Bathroom break,” she explains.

The woman leads them from their shed inside the house. With the blinds closed, it feels to Nina almost like a museum. She wonders what kind of person lives here. The place is cluttered with figurines: vinyl collectibles, ceramic angels and dolls, spaceship replicas. The walls are plastered with movie posters, giving Nina a faint pang of nostalgia. Before the monsters appeared, Dad had framed Star Wars posters in the living room. That and his collection of Merle Haggard records were his biggest contributions to interior design in a house otherwise decorated by Pa.

The bathroom is a surprise. There’s electricity and running water, a ragged towel and some soap. Nina washes her face briefly, shakes out her braids before tying them back again. Her forehead is still bruised and tender to touch, but her headache is almost gone. Looking at herself in the mirror feels like a foreign activity, as if she’s mimicking something from a previous life. Her own appearance is almost a surprise. Wispy hairs escaping her braids, skin tanned even darker from hours in the sun, a cluster of pimples breaking out on her forehead. Her teeth need brushing too, but water will have to do for now.

The heat in the locked shed feels more oppressive when she and Stevie return. Nina curls up on her blanket. She refuses to cry anymore, pinching herself to give her mind something to focus on other than fear. Stevie tries to talk, but Nina’s afraid that she might burst into tears again if she speaks, so she says nothing. An uneasy silence settles between them, broken by occasional voices and dogs barking in other areas of the neighborhood.

Ben returns sometime later, as the day slowly fades into darkness. His face is drawn with exhaustion.

“Can’t stay,” he says. “Just wanted to let you know that the explosives are ready to go. Also they’ve captured several caddies for the fight tomorrow night, and Val wants them to get more. Wants a lot of people in the ring, I guess.”

Stevie’s sitting cross-legged by the lantern, hands folded. She nods.

Nina lifts her head from the blanket. “Am I gonna be in the ring, too?” she asks in a small voice.

She notes the way he stops himself from answering immediately, catches his sad smile. It’s an expression Nina’s seen many times since the monsters’ first appearance. Adults felt sorry for her and she hated it.

“Don’t worry about that,” Ben says gently. “Tomorrow night at this time, this will all be over. Knock on wood,” he adds, rapping on the doorjamb with his knuckles.

“Thanks for all your help, Ben.” Stevie springs up to give him a quick hug.

He pats her shoulder stiffly. “Not just me. There’s a lot of us who think Val’s taken things too far.”

Stevie snorts. “You think?” She steps back and gives him a firm push towards the door. “Good night.”

“Night. Try not to worry too much.”

_ Too late.  _ Nina’s eyes drift back towards the lantern as Ben leaves, locking the door behind him.

Pa said not to panic, but what else can she do? She can’t imagine coming face-to-face with a monster, much less as  _ entertainment _ . She had a strange burst of courage when the caddy went for Pa, leaping up from the ditch to distract it. She wasn’t afraid then, just angry, as furious as Dad when he yelled at her afterwards.

At the same time, the thought of escaping terrifies her. She was foolishly optimistic earlier, when she thought she could simply walk out of the shed and find her parents easily. And if she does escape, what use would she be to anyone? The question makes her head hurt all over again.

She’s still wide awake when the dreaded sunlight peeks into the shed again, curled up on one side with arms wrapped around her body as if hugging herself tightly would make this nightmare go away.


	7. Nadir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image source](https://ak6.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/17246776/thumb/1.jpg)

 

Everything goes silent for Link when Nina disappears. He immediately springs into action, but it’s as if he’s watching an actor onscreen. Someone else splashes into the water, dragging Rhett to safety. Someone else helps Rhett to his feet. Someone else runs downstream ahead of a stumbling Rhett and yells for his daughter until his throat is sore.

Link’s just along for the ride.

By the time he comes back to himself, his wet shoes are chafing his ankles and his chest burns with each breath.

The rain falling in his eyes is a nuisance.

There’s no sign of Nina.

Rhett’s footsteps sound behind him, limping and uneven.

“Anything?” he says.

“No.” Link lets the word hang between them. There’s a massive sob swelling in his chest. If he speaks again, he might never be able to stop weeping.

Instead, he keeps walking.

For three days, they search up and down the riverbank, going several miles each way. Link would be relieved to find a shoe, a scrap of her shirt, _anything_ to give him hope that she might still be alive. Rhett limps along stubbornly behind him, his face gray.

Nothing feels real anymore. Even the quiet determination on Rhett’s face seems unfamiliar. By day, they trudge silently through mud and dirt at the edge of the water, simultaneously watching the river and the trees around them. Occasionally, they see a whiptail, its long thin leaves rippling in the still air.

As the sun sets, they retreat to whatever house or trailer they find, since encountering a monster in the dark can be deadly. Link’s dreams are filled with twisted shapes and screaming. When it’s his turn to keep watch, he comforts himself with memories.

Once she overcame her fear of adults, Nina was an independent child. On her seventh birthday, Link took her to Toys R Us to pick out her gift. Rhett was surprised by this decision; Link had always hated buying gifts when they could take a family trip instead.

“I just want to do something different!” Link had explained the previous night. “You’re the fun dad. You’re always bringing her treats and gifts. Maybe I want to be the fun dad for once.”

From his side of the bed, Rhett laughed. “Does this mean you’ll bake the cake, too?”

Link wrinkled his nose. “You know I can’t cook.”

He was confident that this would be a simple trip. Take Nina to the toy store, get her something she liked, come home to eat cake with her friends. She was excited to pick out a toy, rattling off a long list of things she wanted during the car ride.

But once they reached the store, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of toys on display. He hadn’t set foot in a toy store in years, deferring to Rhett when it came to buying gifts. He slowly wandered the aisles, his mission temporarily forgotten.

When he turned to ask Nina if she wanted to pick out a Lego set, she was gone.

Link didn’t panic at first. He took a frantic trip around the store, his mind buzzing with increasing worry. But when Nina was nowhere to be found, he headed for the front register to speak to an employee.

He found his daughter there, resolutely dragging an RC monster truck towards the front of the store.

It was all Link could do to keep himself from sweeping her up in a tearful embrace. He masked his relief with anger, making her promise to never wander off again.

“But I didn’t want Legos,” she explained. “And you looked like you were lost. So I went and got what I wanted.”

The memory almost makes Link laugh one morning, but he finds himself choking back tears instead.

By the fourth day, he’s no longer hopeful. He’s sick of the thick smell of the river, mud and summer decay. He walks a little ahead of Rhett, head pounding from a near-constant headache.

He tries not to think about finding her body facedown in the shallows.

~

In the course of their search they meet another survivor, a quiet man named Morgan who lives in a trailer surrounded by two fences thick with barbed wire. He’s slightly shorter than Link, with greasy brown hair, patchy stubble, and that same haggard look that every survivor wears. After their initial meeting, he offers them food and information in exchange for bandages and aspirin. He has several dogs to keep him company, explaining how they always alert him in time to grab his gun.

“They’re all good dogs,” he says. He grins at the dachshund puppy asleep in his lap.

They’re sitting in old beach chairs outside his trailer tonight, by the firepit where he burns sticks and trash. The dogs are scattered on the grass around them, motionless except for the occasional twitch of an ear. Link feels sleepy as well. The crackle of the fire is comforting even on this warm night. Morgan offers them both a cigarette from the pack he retrieves from his pocket before lighting up alone.

“Everyone forgot their pets when things started getting bad,” he says, exhaling a soft cloud of smoke. “The cats were fine. They just disappeared into the woods and started hunting mice and shit. The dogs kept trying to fight the caddies.” He glances down at his sleeping puppy. “This one was trying to bite a whiptail. It’s a wonder she didn’t get poisoned.”

Remembering his previous encounter with whiptails, Link shivers a little. He tries to change the subject. “What happened to the bridge at Lillington?”

“Some idiot had the bright idea to blow it up. Thought they could keep the monsters out that way.” He laughs without smiling. “Didn’t work. They didn’t think that there would be monsters in the water.” Morgan takes a long pull of his cigarette, the tip glowing as he inhales. “Like that thing that got your daughter, I guess. Sorry for your loss.”

Link stiffens. “We don’t know if she’s—”

“She’s not dead.”

It’s the first that Rhett has spoken all day. In the flickering light of the fire, his eyes are glittering. He sits crookedly in his chair, leaning on one arm in an effort to relieve his back pain.

“Well.” Morgan clears his throat. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but she probably is.”

Rhett is on his feet in an instant. Even with his hunched posture, he seems massive and dangerous in the dark. “How would you know?” he rasps.

Morgan doesn’t bother looking up from the fire. He rests his hand on his knee, his cigarette held between two fingers. “It was probably a giant squid that got her. They’ve been coming up the river from the Atlantic.”

Rhett doesn’t back down. “And?”

“Let’s say she got away from the thing somehow.” Morgan coughs, wipes his nose. “There are crazy people on the other side of the river. Lady named Val decided she wanted to be a queen or some shit, so she got people to work for her and started kidnapping folks. Makes ‘em fight monsters. Her people tried to get me once, but the dogs chased ‘em off.” Morgan flicks a bit of ash into the fire. “They don’t cross the river anymore thanks to the squid.”

“You think she might’ve ended up with them?” Link asks. He feels cold suddenly, bracing himself for bad news.

“Ehh. I doubt it.” Morgan shakes his head. “She would’ve had to get away from the squid on her own. Pretty unlikely.”

Rhett asks the question that Link can’t bring himself to vocalize. “What do you mean?”

Morgan takes another pull of his cigarette, blows smoke out in a steady stream. “Do you know what monster squid do to their prey?”

Link feels sick. “Don’t want to hear it.”

“They take you somewhere quiet. Then they pull you apart at the limbs. Like popping off a Barbie doll’s arms. I’ve seen it happen.” With a flick of his wrist, Morgan tosses his spent cigarette into the fire.

“Stop,” Link whispers. He needs to hold on to someone, needs Rhett to comfort him before he shakes himself to pieces, but Rhett is still glaring at Morgan.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to cross the river now,” Morgan says. “I’m surprised you didn’t get torn up, too.” He finally looks up. “Why’d you put her in this kind of danger, anyway? This isn’t a world for kids anymore. Take it from me, she’s dead.”

“Stop it!” Rhett snarls. He lurches forward, teeth clenched.

Link barely has time to register him clenching his fist before it connects with Morgan’s cheek. The force of the punch drives Morgan to the ground, where he sits dazed, one hand on his jaw.

His awakened puppy yaps at Rhett, her tail wagging furiously. The sound of her bark wakes the other dogs, who begin howling.

“Rhett!” Terrified, Link springs up and pulls Rhett back.

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child,” Rhett growls. “You’re here safe in your trailer with your pets while we’re trying to get our daughter someplace safe where she doesn’t need to worry—”

_“Quiet!”_

The force of Morgan’s scream silences everyone, human and animal alike. Even the crickets seem to stop chirping.

With great effort, Morgan climbs to his feet. He lifts his head to stare Rhett in the eye, heedless of the bruise swelling on his cheek.

“I lost my family on the river,” he says harshly. “When the monster sightings first started? That’s when it happened. Went canoeing on a Saturday with my wife and my son. He had his little orange life jacket on, so I thought he was safe. Nothing to worry about but drowning, right?” Morgan stops, his throat working convulsively. “Wrong,” he manages finally. “Something tipped our boat over. Took my wife first. Then the thing ripped my kid away.” He grits his teeth. “He was three years old.

“So don’t tell me I don’t know what it’s like. I lost everything I cared about that day. I’m telling you what you need to hear. Your daughter is dead.”

Rhett stares down at Morgan for a moment, his chest heaving. Then he shakes Link off roughly and storms inside the trailer.

Morgan exhales shakily. He returns to his chair and lights up another cigarette as if nothing has happened.

Link is at a complete loss. Should he apologize? Criticize? Maybe throw a punch of his own?

“Sorry,” he says weakly.

“My fault,” Morgan says from a cloud of smoke. “Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”

“You really think she’s... dead?” It takes effort to get the last word out. Link feels his throat constricting.

Morgan coughs. “Better face the facts now instead of weeks down the line when you start going crazy. Been there.” He tilts his head toward the trailer. “Might wanna check on him, make sure he’s not trashing my stuff.”

Link retreats inside the small trailer. As his eyes adjust to the gloom, he finds his husband crumpled in the corner beside the bed.

“Rhett.”

He doesn’t move, his head in his hands.

The silence hurts more than anything else.

Link kneels beside him, placing a hand on Rhett’s arm. “I need you to talk to me. Please.”

When Rhett speaks, his voice is thick with emotion. “What if she _is_ dead?”

Link grips his arm more tightly. “Don’t think like that!”

Rhett runs a hand over his eyes. He’s shaking.

“Hey. Come here.” Link curls a hand around the back of Rhett’s neck and pulls him close. “Breathe with me?”

He doesn’t need to remind Rhett of the times they’ve done this with Nina when she was anxious or nervous, stopping everything to simply _breathe._

Rhett tries to squirm out of Link’s grip at first, but he refuses to let go. He needs the comfort as much as he needs to give it.

They’re silent for a long moment, drawing strength from each other’s presence. Link finally feels comfortable enough to wrap his arms around Rhett, to rest his head on a shoulder so familiar it brings tears to his eyes. A decision hangs in the air between them, growing more tangible with each breath.

Rhett shatters the silence with a whisper.

“Maybe it’s time for us to move on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think the Cape Fear River is deep enough to accommodate giant squid, but I'm taking author's liberties here. :p


	8. No mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image source](http://www.michiganmajor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/old-farmhouses-best-farm-house-churches-barns-old-homes-pinterest.jpg)

Ever since the monsters first appeared, Nina had been familiar with the prospect of death. Pa always got very quiet and sad when the topic came up. Dad frequently joked about it, once telling Nina to make sure he was buried wearing his glasses and holding a flashlight, because he wanted to see the inside of his coffin.

“But I don’t want you to die!” she’d protested.

He must have noticed the tears in her eyes because he hugged her and said he’d do his best to stay alive.

“I joke to cope,” he told her with a weak smile. “Probably not healthy.”

“ _Definitely_ not healthy, Link,” Pa called from the storage room. “Find something else to joke about.”

Despite the talk of dying, the possibility of Nina’s death was barely ever mentioned.

Now, she wonders if she’s going to die.

She and Stevie had spent an uneventful day alone in the shed. As the daylight had begun fading, they were unceremoniously dragged to a torchlit field and stuffed into a massive cage, along with fifteen other terrified prisoners. To make things worse, their cage is flanked by two others. One holds a trio of gray-skinned caddies, their long limbs hobbled. They scream and thrash on the ground, trying feebly to get away from the light. It’s unnerving to watch. The other cage is covered with a blue tarp, held in place by ropes.

“It’s okay,” Stevie tells her. “Ben will get us out of here.”

Nina isn’t so sure. They’re surrounded by armed guards and hounds that growl at the tarp-covered cage. A massive bonfire burns as well, set beside a sandy pit that had been dug in the field. It’s ringed by a crude iron railing and several rows of bleachers full of people chattering excitedly. If not for the cages and monsters, the festive atmosphere almost reminded Nina of a night soccer game.

Stevie nudges her. “There’s Val.”

Nina follows her nod and immediately feels her throat tighten.

Two women are standing at the edge of the pit before a low table. One of them is tall and thin, wearing a black cloak that makes her look like a movie villain. The other one is instantly familiar, her green hair wild around her face.

Quentin.

She glances at the prisoners only briefly, passing over Nina without recognition. Nina wishes she could slide through the ground. This is the woman who almost kidnapped her family before the shambler interrupted, and now her parents aren’t even here to protect her. The other prisoners are at the bars of the cage now, yelling for help, pleading for mercy, but Nina hangs back with Stevie. She doesn’t know what else to do.

The black cloaked woman raises her hands, and the gathered crowd falls silent.

“Welcome to the no mercy games,” she calls. Her voice rings throughout the field even without amplification. “We have a surprise for you all tonight!”

Raucous cheers.

“But first, our opening entertainment.”

Quentin tosses a dice onto the table before Val, where they clatter before settling into place. The two of them examine the result, and Val speaks up.

“Man unarmed vs. caddy.”

Without preamble, one of the guards opens the cage and drags a skittish man out, ignoring his struggling and screams. They shove him into the sandy pit.

One of the caddies is dragged from its cage and shoved in after him. The crowd falls silent as it gets to his feet. The only sound is the man in the pit, pleading for help as he backs away from the monster.

Then the caddy’s bulbous head turns to watch him retreat. It pounces suddenly. Nina shuts her eyes as the roar of the crowd swells. It isn’t loud enough to drown out the man’s screams as the caddy tears him apart.

Within moments, it’s over. Nina can’t look at the body. One of the guards shoots the caddy, and others climb into the pit to carry the carnage away. Only a brown stain remains in the sand, which is quickly raked clean.

When she looks back at the table, Quentin’s eyes meet hers.

It’s only for a moment, but she catches a spark of something there.

Quentin tosses the dice and they examine the result again. Val speaks.

“Woman with knife vs. caddy.”

Quentin points at one of the prisoners, a woman who looks barely older than a teenager is thrown into a pit, along with another caddy. The monster darts forward, but the woman dodges away in time. She brings the knife down, tearing a large, blue gash into the caddy’s side.

The crowd bellows its approval as the caddy thrashes in the sand. Then like lightning, one set of claws lashes out, fangs digging into the woman’s ankle. She screams.

This time, the guard shoots both the monster and the woman before they’re removed from the pit.

As the sand is raked clean, Nina risks another glance at the table and feels her heart drop. Quentin is striding towards the prisoners’ cage.

“You.”

Nina feels her knees shaking. Her heart pounds so hard in her chest that it almost hurts. Quentin is pointing at _her_. There’s no hiding now. The other prisoners give her a wide berth, but Stevie stays by her side.

“I never forget a face,” Quentin says softly. “You were in that house when the shambler attacked, weren’t you?”

 _No_ , Nina wants to say, but her throat seems to have closed up. Quentin grins darkly.

“You were. All that fuss, and you ended up here anyway.”

It’s a nightmare that keeps getting worse. Nina feels like she’s floating on clouds of disbelief as Quentin trots back to Val, whispers something, gets a nod in response. The guards are at the cage again, but this time they’re dragging _her_ out of it and shoving her down into the pit.

Something lands in the sand beside her. It’s a knife. _Her_ knife. In a flash, she remembers Dad. She knows he offered that knife to her as an apology, not intending for her to ever use it, but she’s never been more grateful for a weapon in her life. She picks it up in both hands.

 _Sometimes the only way out of danger is to fight your way through it._ Pa told her that the day they left the shelter, and now she understands that he’s right.

She backs away from the monster cages until her back hits the wall of the pit. She can’t quite catch her breath. She’s sweating so much that she can feel a trickle of it running down her back. The noise of the crowd crashes against her like a wave.

Then, as the tarp is torn from the cage, a wave of sickness passes over her. The people on the bleachers fall into stunned silence.

A massive goat-headed thing stands there, eyes a pool of black.

“Girl with knife vs. hellwalker!” Vall cheerfully announces.

The monster is unceremoniously thrust into the pit by guards wielding stun canes. The silence is so deep that Nina can hear its hooves hit the ground with a dull thud.

Looking into the hellwalker’s eyes is akin to peering down a dark well. There’s something there, malicious and evil, and it wants to hurt her badly. Nina is going to die. She’s never been more certain of anything in her life.

What would Dad say when he learned she was gone? Would Pa cry or would he just be angry?

Maybe they think she’s already dead. Maybe they’ve already accepted it and moved on.

A sudden anger flares in Nina’s chest. She doesn’t want to die.

As the hellwalker begins striding towards her, placing one hoof ponderously in front of the other, the crowd begins yelling again. Nina’s vision narrows until all she can see is the creature. The hellwalker’s stare feels _wrong_ , as if it’s digging into her mind. A flash of memory passes before her eyes: Pa pointing at the broken living room window, asking Nina if she knows anything about it, frowning when she guiltily says no.

Another memory: arguing with Dad when he told her that she couldn’t sleep over a friend’s house. She told him she hated him, and the shock on his face was as sharp as if he’d been slapped.

The memories come more quickly, each unpleasant and guilt-laden in its own way. Hurt looks from friends. Pa’s disappointment when she failed tests at school. Nina wants to escape the images, wants to crush them back in the recesses of her mind, but she can’t escape.

“I’m sorry.” The words leave her softly.

The hellwalker blinks once, insect-like, a translucent film passing swiftly over its eyes. The motion jolts Nina out of memory. Above her, the crowd has become a thing, many mouths howling all at once as the hellwalker begins to move.

It’s coming at her faster than she expected. She barely has time to dart to the side before the hellwalker plows into the wall. Its head jerks around, eyes fixing on her again. Nina glares back, clutching her knife more tightly. Survival instinct brings with it a cold objectivity, a sense of purpose similar to how she felt in the middle of an intense soccer game. She’s still scared, but she thinks she can do this now.

Then the explosions start.

Nina barely registers them at first. She’s dodging the hellwalker, who darts at her but somehow misses. Then someone above her screams.

The air is quickly filled with shouts and footsteps as the crowd scatters.

“Nina!” In the midst of the commotion, Stevie’s suddenly at the edge of the pit. Nina runs and Stevie pulls her to safety just as the hellwalker shambles after her again.

People are running in all directions. Stevie pulls her away from the bonfire further into the field.

“We need to get out of here.” Stevie grips Nina’s hand, but the girl doesn’t move. “Nina, c’mon! You can stay with Cassie and me.”

Nina shakes her head, pulls her hand away. “I-I have to find Dad and Pop.”

“Nina, they might be dead.” Stevie’s face is tense in the light of the bonfire.

“But they probably think _I’m_ dead.”

“What are you going to do if you can’t find them?”

“I-I’ll keep going,” Nina says. She knows it’s foolish, but she’s clinging to a strand of hope. “I’ll go to Fort Bragg like we were supposed to.”

Stevie searches her face for a moment, her lips a thin line. Then she nods.

“Good luck,” she says firmly. “You’re braver than you know.”

Nina doesn’t wait for her to say anything more. She tears away, running. She didn’t know her legs could move so fast. Through the crowds and into the field beyond, heedless of anything in her path. At the back of her mind, she remembers to watch for whiptails, but her overpowering thought is _get out._

She runs until it hurts to breathe, until a stitch in her side makes her stumble, then she runs some more. She only stops when she reaches the Cape Fear river. She wraps her arms around herself and tries to think. She has to get back to Lillington. For that, she needs to cross the river on her own in the dark.

Nina squints across the water, at the opposite shore. It looks deceptively close. She almost made it across before. Would she be so lucky now?

Maybe she should wait until morning.

The sound of barking from somewhere nearby quickly changes her mind. She isn’t going to risk facing the hounds at night.

She plunges into the water in a panic, the coldness quickly filling her shoes and soaking her clothes. When the water begins soaking into her shirt, she kicks off from the bottom and swims.

Behind her, the barking grows louder. She swims as hard as she can, fighting the current pushing her downstream. At one point, her hand touches something slimy and she lets out a choked shriek before realizing that it’s just leaves from a floating branch.

When her feet finally touch the bottom of the river, she can hardly believe it. She drags herself from the river and curls up on the bank, heedless of the water streaming from her clothes. On the opposite shore, shouts and lights flicker through the trees, but on this side, everything is silent.

~

Looking back, Nina doesn’t remember much of the first few days after crossing the river. She spends the nights in houses, curled up in a corner with her knife at the ready. She doesn’t sleep much. During the day, she walks through roads and fields as quietly as possible, praying that any monsters in the area don’t hear her.

Food is difficult to find. She finds a house with a small garden in the front, helping herself to the blackberries now growing wild.

She’s not sure how far north Lillington is, but she keeps walking, keeping the river on her right side. She doesn’t stray too close to it, fearing that Val’s cronies would be keeping a close watch there.

Nina surprises herself by not feeling afraid. She’s determined. She’s going to find her parents even if they’ve left her for dead.

Even if _they_ are dead.

~

Her determination falters once the hunger pangs worsen to the point that she can think of nothing else but food.

The sun’s finally setting after another day spent shuffling down the road. She’s worn out from constantly being alert, and her head is throbbing.

So when she sees a campfire burning through the trees, she creeps towards it without thinking twice.

There’s a man slumped in a chair by the firepit, a high gate protecting him from the woods beyond his trailer. Nina wonders if he’s dead, but one of his hands is idly stroking the ears of a furball curled up on his knees. Several other dogs are scattered around him, all apparently asleep.

Nina wonders if she should keep moving, but she’s hungry and _thirsty._ If this man or his dogs want to fight, so be it. Wandering the wilderness at night would get her killed anyway. She takes three deep breaths to steel her nerves, then emerges from the darkness brandishing her knife. Her heart is pounding madly. One of the dogs, a golden lab whose coat has seen better days, raises its head.

“P-please, I need somethin’ to eat.” The phrase sounds weak, but she’s too tightly wound to be polite.

The man’s hand never stops moving.

“Who’s there,” he says, his tone flat.

She ignores the question. “Do you have anything to drink?” Her voice is stronger. She already faced a hellwalker and lived; surely she can handle another human.

“What if I don’t?” The man turned his head to squint at her, dark eyes narrowed beneath a shock of equally dark hair. “You gonna throw that knife at me?”

The question gives Nina pause. She’s fired guns at ranges before while with her parents, but she’d never pictured herself shooting another human.

Before she can answer, the man carefully gathers the furball on his lap into his arm and gets to his feet. He’s tall and thin, clothes faded and worn through in a few places. He puts a hand on the latch of the gate.

“You can kill me if you want,” he says offhandedly. “Just make sure to take care of Jade afterwards.”

There’s something about his face that seems incredibly sad and empty, as if he just finished crying very hard and couldn’t be bothered to care about anything.

“Who’s Jade?” Nina asks. She cautiously steps through the gate, which he locks behind them.

“This little girl.” The man nods at the puppy in his arms. “I’m Morgan.”

“Nina.”

She ends up sitting by the firepit with a bottle of water in her hand while Morgan brings a few cans of food from his trailer. Jade noses at her ankles until she scratches behind the puppy’s ears.

“Don’t got much left,” Morgan says reflectively as Nina digs into a can of beans. “Probably gonna go exploring soon.”

“Sorry,” Nina mumbles with her mouth full. She hasn’t tasted anything this good in days.

“No problem.” The man fishes a cigarette pack from his pocket. “I don’t mind helping people out.”

She watches him slap the pack against his open palm. “Where’d you get those?”

“Stole ‘em, of course! When things _really_ started getting bad, everyone went for the bread and milk and water, like they were preparing for a hurricane. I got some smokes and all the canned food I could carry. Dog food, too.” Morgan slips a cigarette from the pack, but twirls it between his fingers instead of lighting it. “You want one?”

Nina shakes her head no. “I’m not an adult.”

“Don’t matter.” He waves at the darkness surrounding them. “If you’ve survived this hell on your own, you’ve seen horrors that would have most adults shitting themselves.”

The hellwalker’s dead-eyed gaze flashes through her mind. Nina almost chokes on her food.

“I’m looking for my parents,” she tells him.

“They’re probably dead.” Morgan sighs. “Let me guess. Your mom sacrificed herself to protect you, and your dad died when he charged a pack of caddies soon after, right?”

“N-no, we were crossing the river,” Nina says. “And I have two dads.”

For the first time all night, Morgan seems to really _look_ at her. His gaze is suddenly sharp. “Names?”

“Rhett and Link.”

Nothing could have prepared her for the hysterical laughter that bursts from Morgan. He collapses in his chair, one hand over his face as his body is shaken with hoarse chuckles.

“What’s wrong?” she asks warily. She’s on edge again, sitting up in her chair in case she needs to run.

“I saw them just last night,” he says, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “I told ‘em you might be dead and one of ‘em punched me in the face.”

Nina’s eyes are burning. So they _were_ looking for her. They hadn’t given up hope just yet.

“Where’d they go?” she demands. “Did they say where? Are they coming back here? I need to find them.”

“Hold on.” Morgan gestures for her to sit back down. “It’s not safe to go roaming at night. They said they’re going to head to Fort Bragg. Probably didn’t get too far, though. The guy who punched me was limping pretty badly.”

For the first time in days, Nina feels tentative hope. She can do this.

That night, she sleeps in the bed in the trailer. Morgan tosses her the key before she heads inside.

“Lock the door if that makes you feel safer,” he says, exhaling puffs of smoke with each word. “I’ll be out here if you need anything.”

Nina doesn’t think she’ll be able to fall asleep. She puts her head on the musty-smelling pillow, mind awhirl with excitement and hope.

When she opens her eyes again, there’s sunlight peeking in through the broken blinds.

Morgan is pacing the perimeter of the fence when she emerges from the trailer, Jade at his heels.

“You leaving?” he asks.

She nods.

“By yourself?”

She’s not sure how to answer that. Of course she’s going on her own.

“Thank you for the food and for letting me stay,” she says, one hand on the latch of the gate.

“Wait.” Morgan’s brow is creased in concern. He scoops up Jade and trots across the grass to join her. “You’ll need some company.”

Nina bristles. “I don’t want you to go with me. I can fight by myself.”

Morgan shakes his head. “Wasn’t talking about me. You want the dog?”

~

So with a few cans of dog food and a few water bottles in the old backpack Morgan gave her, Nina heads south with Jade. It’s comforting to not be alone anymore. Jade has a little red kerchief tied around her neck. She trots along, nosing into bushes and patches of grass by the road. Morgan gave Nina a leash too, but told her that she probably wouldn’t need it.

“She’s a clingy one,” he told her. “But it’s good to have a leash just in case.”

“Aren’t you gonna miss her?” she asked.

He only shrugged. “My dogs will have other puppies. I just thought you might need the company.”

On a day like today, she could pretend that the time spent imprisoned by Val was a bad dream. Nina’s always wanted a dog. Pa never wanted one because he said he was cursed as far as pets were concerned. Dad always said pets were too expensive. With the leash in hand, she imagines herself taking the dog for a walk in the neighborhood. She’d walk a few blocks, circle back to the house, and find Pa making dinner and Dad folding laundry.

Thinking about her parents makes her want to sit down and cry. Maybe she won’t find her parents. Maybe this is her life _—_ wandering the countryside alone until she finally dies.

Her eyes blur with tears.

She tries to focus on her puppy instead.

They come to a place where the wreck of two cars had never been cleared off the road. Nina gives them a wide berth after catching sight of a body in the driver’s seat of one car. Imagining the shriveled head turning, looking at her, _smiling_ is enough to make her walk faster.

She glances around for Jade, needing the reassurance that _something_ in this world isn’t violent or dead.

“Jade?”

The dog is nowhere to be seen.

Then she hears a bark from nearby.

“Jade!”

She plunges into the trees, around a mound of rock slabs, and stops short.

The biggest snake she’s ever seen is coiled around the trunk of a young pine tree, scales glittering iridescently in the sunlight. It’s almost beautiful.

From somewhere in the back of her brain, she recalls a name: _slither._ Pa told her about them. Very fast, extremely poisonous, and this one’s attention is fixed on her puppy.

Jade doesn’t seem afraid, though. She growls, her teeth bared and tail wagging madly. The slither sways to and fro, tongue flicking out to taste the air.

Nina acts without thinking.

“Hey!” She stamps on the ground. “Over here.”

The snake’s head whips around to face her. It advances, its massive coils flattening the grass beneath it. Jade slowly backs away, still growling.

Briefly, Nina wonders if _this_ would be the day she died. The slither must be as big around as her leg, and several times longer. It hisses, and pounces.

Nina screams and shuts her eyes and raises her knife, more to shield her face than anything else. She waits for the inevitable pain of the bite, the agony of venom.

Instead, she feels something trickling down her arm.

It’s blood. The snake impaled itself on her knife, and it twitches feebly, mouth open uselessly.

Jade seizes her opportunity to jump on its thrashing tail.

A cold part of Nina’s brain takes over. Calmly, she shakes the writhing snake loose from her blade. Then she hefts a slab of rock and drops it on the slither’s head.

It twitches a few more times and goes still.

She comes back to herself then. She’s shaking and her arm is drenched in stinking, dark blue blood.

“Jade.”

The dog is still worrying at the slither’s tail.

“Jade!” A sob bubbles up, followed by more before she can stop it. She drops to the ground in tears as the full weight of the encounter hits her.

Jade is beside her in moments, licking her not-bloody hand. Nina pulls her close and cries until her head hurts.

They could have  _ died. _

The only thing that gets her moving is the thought of her parents. She _has_ to find them.

Her skin is thankfully free of snakebite wounds, so she uses some precious water to wash the blood from her arm. Jade appears unharmed as well, so after a few moments of bracing herself for the day ahead, she returns to the road.

She keeps Jade on the leash after that.

~

As the sun begins to set, Nina’s a nervous wreck. She hasn’t come upon a house in miles. Every animal sound is the beginning of a caddy’s screech. Every rustle in the bushes is a slither about to pounce.

Jade seems to sense her discomfort. She sticks close by Nina, brushing up against her like a cat. Nina picks her up and nuzzles in her fur.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “We’ll find a place to sleep.”

By the time she comes upon a house — a weatherbeaten farmhouse with a wraparound porch — the sun has just dipped below the horizon. Nina limps across the field toward it, tugging at Jade’s leash to keep her from getting distracted. Her feet are sore, and her head throbs with each step. She just wants to get in the house and lie down for a little while.

But as she nears the door, there’s the unmistakable sound of muffled voices within.

For a moment, she falters. There’s no telling how many people are already inside, and whether they’re hostile or friendly. But twilight has almost ended, the world slowly slipping into darkness, and Nina isn’t about to wander off in the night.

Stealthily, she tries the doorknob. Locked. She takes a deep breath. Pa always told her to examine all her possibilities before acting. She has very few; she could knock on the door, try to find another way into the house, or sleep on the porch.

Before she can decide, Jade patters up to the door, noses against it, and barks.

“ _Jade!_ ” In cold terror, she grabs her dog and scampers back off the porch. “Please stop, please please please...”

Jade barks again, squirming in her arms.

The front door of the house swings open, but Nina doesn’t wait to see its occupant. She scampers around the side of the house and hisses at Jade to be quiet.

She feels ridiculous almost immediately. Why is she suddenly afraid when she’d just confronted Morgan on her own just a few nights before? There are _people_ in this house. What are the chances that they’d want to kill her?

Someone grabs Nina from behind.

It’s someone much taller than her, pinning her arms to her body with his stronger grip.

In a split second, she goes from terrified to furious.

With a yell, she kicks back hard, her heel connecting with a shin. The man behind her sucks in air between his teeth, letting out a quiet, “Hey...”

But she won’t stop fighting, all her pent-up anxiety leaving her at once as she kicks and screams. She’s already survived death three times. She is _not_ going to die here.

_“Get your fucking hands off me you shit face I will rip—”_

“Nina?”

“ _—your fucking elbows off and—”_

“Nina!”

The voice cuts through her panicked rage. She goes still.

“Nina, honey, it’s me.”

For the first time, she looks up at her captor. Even in the darkness, she can trace the outline of a familiar pair of glasses.

She collapses into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: The events of this chapter were the first ideas I had for this fic. Were they good ideas? You be the judge.


	9. Respite

Rhett never wants to let Nina go.

She’s bruised and wild-eyed and thinner than ever, but she’s  _ alive _ , she’s  _ here, _ and Rhett doesn’t think he’s ever cried so hard in his life.

“You’re not dead.” Link says it over and over, sounding bewildered as he wraps his arms around them both. “You’re really not dead.” He laughs, hugs them both tighter.

The puppy that Nina had been holding putters around their feet and noses at Rhett’s leg. He makes an effort to gather himself, wiping his face on his shirt.

“Who’s this?”

“Jade.” Nina dries her eyes on her t-shirt sleeve. A flash of worry crosses her face. “And I’m keeping her! She’s my dog. You can’t make me give her away!”

“Shh, we’re not sending anybody away,” Link says gently, and Rhett feels tears welling up again.

Nina falls asleep in Rhett’s arms that night, her head nestled on his shoulder as he sits in a chair in the living room His back aches, but he’s perfectly content to stay up all night to make sure she’s undisturbed. Jade seems miffed at not being able to sit on Nina’s lap, so after a few rounds of Rhett’s chair, she settles on the floor between his feet.

Link makes one final check of the farmhouse, making sure all entrances are secure and no monsters are creeping around outside, before returning to the living room. He pulls up a chair beside Rhett.

Something about the past few days shifted Link’s attitude towards other people’s things; he no longer hesitates to shift the furniture when they settle down in an empty house for the night.

“All clear,” he reports, scratching at the stubble that’s been growing unchecked for the past several days.

Rhett hums in response. Link shifts his chair closer, resting his head on Rhett’s free shoulder. Gently, he brushes Nina’s braids away from her face.

“What do you think happened?” he says, voice hushed.

A host of awful things flood Rhett’s mind, vivid enough to make him grit his teeth in rage, but he only shakes his head.

In the morning, Nina is still very quiet. Rhett feels like he’s walking on eggshells around his daughter, not wanting to press her for details on how she’d survived but also wanting to grab her and demand to know if anyone hurt her. Link, however, has no such compunctions.

“You should have heard her, Rhett,” he says with a chuckle. They’re on the porch eating trail mix that Rhett had rationed out for them. Jade’s worn herself out running from the steps to the grass and back again, so she’s curled up on Nina’s lap. “She called me a... what was it, Nina? A motherfucking shithead?”

Rhett winces. “Language.”

“Sorry, Pop,” Nina mumbles.

“Not you, him.” Rhett frowns at Link, who isn’t paying attention.

“You been swearing at people a lot?”

Nina only shakes her head.

“How did you find us?”

“Link.” Rhett crunches a cashew between his teeth. Their eyes meet over their daughter’s head. Confusion on Link’s face morphs into understanding as he comprehends Rhett’s pointed glare.

“Sorry, honey,” Link quickly says. “You don’t need to talk if you’re not ready.”

They spend three days in the farmhouse, growing used to the idea that they’re all together again. Rhett manages to make Nina smile by balancing two cans of fruit on his head. At night, she refuses to sleep unless one of her parents is beside her. Rhett remembers late nights years ago, of waking to toddler Nina burrowing beneath the covers beside him because she’d had a nightmare.

She has nightmares now, but she won’t talk about them. It’s not until they leave the farmhouse behind that she begins to open up. About being captured, waking up in the shed with Stevie, facing the hellwalker, escaping thanks to Ben’s sabotage, swimming across the river in the dark, meeting Morgan.

“He told me you punched him, Pa,” Nina says.

Rhett throws his head back and laughs until his chest hurts. He feels the weight of the past days lifting from his shoulders, leaving him light as a cloud. Link grins, and for a moment they’re all happy.

His back still hurts, but he feels whole again. What does a bit of physical pain matter when his daughter is alive and well?

The sun shines above them, hot as ever. They walk together, Jade trotting by Nina’s side.

“I always thought the apocalypse would kill off all life on the planet,” Rhett murmurs. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Nature finds a way,” Link says. “Like in  _ Jurassic Park _ .”

“Life finds a way,” Rhett corrects him.

Link subsides into temporary silence. “We’re so close to Fort Bragg, y’all,” he says after a moment, nudging Rhett. When he gets no response, he grabs his husband’s arm. “So close!”

Their spirits are buoyed further when they come upon a group of six people — heavily armed and wearing army fatigues. After explaining their reasons for traveling, they’re taken further down the road to what used to be South Harnett Elementary. One of the soldiers, who introduces herself as Corporal Bassett, explains that this is an outpost of Fort Bragg.

“We have electricity, running water, and food,” she tells them as they are admitted through the perimeter fence and cross the front parking lot, where people are busy repairing a trio of modified school buses. “We’re less than twenty miles away from the fort, but we only take scheduled trips back and forth. There are a  _ lot _ of monsters in this area.”

Link squints. “Did you say running water?”

“Yep.” She grins at him. “Haven’t taken a shower in a long time, huh?”

“Not in months!”

Inside, Rhett feels slightly claustrophobic. The place doesn’t feel like a school. The walls are bare. Classrooms are filled with beds, and the lockers along the wall are all labeled with names and numbers in large letters. The front office has been converted into a medical center, where Link, Rhett, and Nina undergo a cursory physical examination to make sure they aren’t sick or injured. Rhett’s reminded of just how much he hates being around large groups of people. He undergoes a barrage of tests, gets an IV in his arm to ward off dehydration, and a clean set of slightly-too-small clothes. He answers the same questions over and over, until he’s ready to kick something.

“What’s your name? Was there anyone else traveling with you? How far have you traveled? How many monsters have you encountered? How many people have you seen? How did you cross the Cape Fear River?”

He’s relieved to hear from a nurse that the worst to happen to Nina is that she’s slightly dehydrated and with minor head trauma. Aside from that and a few bruises, she’s okay.

Jade gets examined as well, barking and growling through every moment of it. She sulks for the rest of the day, sticking close by Nina’s ankles.

The other people in the place are welcoming enough, but Rhett can already see that this wouldn’t be a place for him and his family to stay for long. There are no other families here, only military personnel, mechanics, and a skeleton crew of people charged with keeping the place running. Everyone is  _ busy _ . Rhett catches glimpses of machines being repaired in different rooms and overhears someone talking about the “Harnett County blitz.”

As newcomers, the family is given bed assignments in what was once a classroom. A few others are already in the room, which is divided into sections by hanging curtains and folding screens. Their beds are little more than cots in a corner opposite the window.

The only relics of the room’s previous usage are a whiteboard at one end of the room and a projector on a rolling cart in the corner beside it. Rhett pictures the room the way it once was: rows of desks, posters on the walls, coats and backpacks arranged on hooks.

He wonders how many of the children who attended this school are still alive.

A memory surfaces of Morgan sitting by the fire.  _ This isn’t a world for kids anymore, _ he’d said. And on some level, Rhett can’t disagree.

Nina refuses to be parted from them that night.

“What if we get separated again?” she says, brow furrowed with worry.

“You have your knife and Jade,” Link reminds her. “You’ll be able to find us again. But we’ll be here!” he quickly adds when she opens her mouth to protest. “Just try to go to sleep.”

“Yeah.” Rhett yawns. “If I’m not here when you wake up, you have my permission to kick him in the balls.”

“Pa! That’s so mean.” But she’s laughing, so Rhett only grins.

She falls asleep on her cot soon after, with Jade curled up by her feet.

Rhett reaches across the gap between beds and finds Link’s hand. His husband squeezes back. He drifts off to sleep, warm with the knowledge that they’re merely a day’s travel from Fort Bragg.

~

On their first full day at the outpost, once medical exams and questions are over,  Link focuses on shaving the messy beard that’s sprouted in the absence of a razor.

“Your face looks bigger, Dad,” Nina tells him when he finds her and Rhett outside, teasing Jade with sticks.

“Does it?” He runs his hand along his jaw, feeling the wonderful smoothness that he’s missed. “What do you think, Rhett?”

His husband gives him a lingering kiss on the cheek. “Feels good,” he says, his voice soft in a way that makes Link blush.

On the second day, he takes a proper shower.

He waits until after breakfast, when the bathrooms are empty. Nina and Rhett are helping clean up the cafeteria along with several others. Rhett waves Link away.

“Take your dang shower, man,” he says. “You’re gonna jump outta your skin otherwise.”

Link flees with a quick thank you.

The halls are quiet except for a few grim-faced people rolling a machine on a cart. Link passes the block of classrooms being used for research. It’s strange to see rooms full of adults in a building originally designed for children. Yet another reminder of how things had changed over the past year.

When he gets to the showers, he undresses in a flurry, folding shirt and pants with shaky hands. On top, he places a clean pair of underwear, which had been issued to him when they’d first arrived.

Then he steps into the shower and, with his heart pounding in anticipation, turns the tap.

A deluge of icy water hits his chest. With a shriek, he bursts from the stall. He stands with teeth chattering, arms around his stomach, before he recalls how showers work.

Thankfully, the water doesn’t take long to warm up. When steam rises from the shower, he cautiously steps back inside.

The moan that escapes him is entirely inappropriate. He never knew hot water could feel so good. Closing his eyes, he rotates slowly, reveling in the feel of running water against his skin. It’s peaceful here, no sound but the shower echoing through the locker room.

Then he hears the sound of the shower curtain being pushed aside.

Rhett’s there, his eyes downcast.

“Nina’s with the corporal,” he says. “Lizzie, she said to call her. Can I—”

“Come here,” Link whispers.

Rhett complies immediately. Yanks his shirt over his head, kicks off pants and underwear. They meet beneath the water, arms twining around each other’s bodies. Rhett tastes salty and lovely and familiar, and it’s been so long since Link has kissed him this deeply that he can’t get enough. His heart aches at the feel of Rhett’s hand in his hair.

“I’ve missed you,” Link murmurs.

Rhett huffs out a laugh. “I’ve been here this whole time, man.”

“You know what I mean.” He tries to sound annoyed, but it’s difficult when Rhett’s even more gentle than usual.

Rhett somehow managed to find soap and a washcloth, for which Link is thankful. They take their time washing, or rather, Rhett insists on washing them both. Link almost doesn’t recognize the emotion swelling in his chest until Rhett’s hand begins massaging his scalp.

“Thank you.” He sounds broken, lowering his head to Rhett’s shoulder. Maybe he is, torn to pieces by the horrors of leaving their home, facing monsters, and almost losing Nina for good. He wants to do better for the both of them. He wants to trust them instead of letting worry consume him.

“I love you,” Rhett murmurs. The words leave Link weak. No matter how many times Rhett says them, he’s always sincere. “I love you and I’m thankful that we’ve made it this far. We’re almost there. We’re gonna be safe. No more scavenging. No more hiding and killing monsters. We’ll finally have a place to sleep in peace.”

It’s exactly what Link needs to hear. Rhett keeps up a steady stream of reassurance as he rinses the soap from Link’s body.

Then he lowers himself to his knees.

Link gasps out his name.

The warmth of the water was nothing compared to the sudden heat of Rhett’s mouth around him, the faint hum of approval in his throat sending shivers through Link’s veins.

He’s beautiful on his knees, with water plastering his hair to his forehead and drops glinting on his lashes. His eyes drag up the length of Link’s body to pin him in place as his tongue traces the shaft in his mouth.

He’s incredible and Link loves him so.

Just as he’s beginning to lose himself in the heat of it all, Rhett pulls off, replacing his mouth with a hand.

“Floor’s too hard,” he mutters.

Link can’t help grinning. He helps Rhett to his feet, just out of reach of the shower’s spray, and they share another long kiss.

“Hey.” Rhett’s lips are feather-light. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you were alone.”

“I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, too,” Link murmurs into the crook of his neck. After a moment, he adds, “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“Fair enough.” Rhett’s smiling as they kiss again. There’s water in Link’s eyes, but he hardly cares. He reaches between them and gives Rhett a squeeze.

“I need you.”

“Here?” There’s disbelief in Rhett’s voice, even as he bites his lip.

“Yes,  _ here _ .” Link laughs. His voice turns teasing “Or do you want me on my knees for you, too?”

He’s stroking Rhett gently now, his thumb tracing circles around the head of his cock. Rhett’s eyes have gone glassy. “Whatever you want.”

Link needs no further urging. He turns and plants one hand on the tiled wall. Rhett moves in close behind, carefully finding his way inside with one finger, then two, then removes them for a moment before his cock pushes its way in.

The sound that Link makes echoes through the bathroom, enough for Rhett to clap a hand over his mouth. Link takes him in slowly, his breath high and thin. Soon, Rhett’s body is flush against his, one hand curling in Link’s hair while the other digs into his hip.

In a hot breath of air, Link says, “You can move.”

Rhett starts off slow, letting him adjust and relax. As he picks up the pace, Link shuts his eyes, whispering encouragement. He wants it hard and fast. He needs the heat and moans and gasps for more to blot out everything else. When Rhett’s hand finds his cock and begins to stroke, he can’t help the moan that escapes him.

Then Rhett’s rhythm falters, his thrusts going even deeper.

“Link...”

He shudders as he comes. Link feels him convulse inside and out. The feel pulls Link over the edge, stars bursting behind his eyes. As his head lolls against his husband’s shoulder, Rhett’s lips find his again. He drifts a little then, floating on euphoric clouds of steam. Rhett’s arms gently tighten around him, keeping him from falling apart altogether.

Somewhere in the midst of the afterglow, his gasps turn to sobs and suddenly he’s being pressed against the cool tiles of the wall as Rhett kisses all over his face.

The water has gone from hot to lukewarm by the time they pull apart and rinse themselves clean. Rhett turns the shower off and ushers him to the bench, where a pair of towels are waiting.

“I figured you forgot about these,” Rhett explained as they dried off.

Link feels exhausted, but in a good way. He musters enough energy to make a scoffing sound. “Because I’m too dumb to remember.”

“No, because it’s been a long time since we’ve taken a shower.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had  _ sex _ in a shower,” Link points out as he pulls his shirt over his head. “How’s your back?”

“Never been better.” Rhett snaps his towel at Link’s rear.

“Hey! That hurt, man!” Link grabs his towel and snaps back.

Before Rhett can retaliate, the locker room door opens and a man steps in with a towel on his shoulder. They freeze, but the man barely spares them a glance as he heads for the showers.

They cleaned up all signs of their encounter, but Link still feels awkward about staying in the locker room for too long.

“Let’s go,” he says as he hears the shower water running again. Rhett doesn’t object.

As they leave, Link takes his hand.


	10. Departure

The morning of their trip to Fort Bragg is muggy and overcast. The heat does nothing to calm Link’s nerves as he, Rhett, Nina, and Jade pile into the cramped backseat of a pickup truck.

He isn’t worried for their safety. He and Rhett were both issued a handgun and a limited supply of ammo before they left. The truck is shielded with metal hatches on the doors where the windows had been. The windshield is reinforced with a thin plastic latticework. Their driver is accompanied by a silent, brunette woman named Allie who wears camo and wields a very large rifle. It’s the feeling that he’s passed into an alternate dimension that makes him uncomfortable, a reminder of a more banal time and place. Even the absence of other cars on the road doesn’t help shake the powerful feeling of deja vu. It’s also the thought of returning to some form of society that makes him anxious. What if he and his family can’t find their place? What if leaving their underground shelter was a mistake?

As they leave the school behind, the driver begins talking about Fort Bragg.

“There’s still a lot of open space, but people are coming in every day,” he says. He keeps his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and he sounds strangely upbeat for someone driving through monster-infested territory. Link has already forgotten whether his name is Brian or Ryan.

“Will it be hard to find a place for us, you think?” Rhett asks.

“Not at all!” Brian/Ryan laughs. “They could always use whatever help they can get. Building houses, repairing equipment, yelling at somebody to bring in some firewood... there’s always something to do. There’s a school for your daughter, too.”

Link’s knees are jammed against the back of the driver’s seat. He knows Rhett can’t be any more comfortable, but his husband’s eyes are alight with something that Link hasn’t seen there in a long time.

Rhett’s excited about the future again.

Link leans back and puts an arm around Nina, who snuggles in close to him. He rolls his neck from side to side, trying to ease the tension there as he lets Rhett’s animated chatter wash over him.

“There’s a lot we still don’t understand about these monsters,” Rhett says. “Where they came from, why they migrate from place to place, what whiptails are.”

“I know!” Brian—it was probably Brian—chuckles. He waves a hand at the woods hemming the road in on both sides. “Who knows, this might be what life will be like from now on. Humanity living in heavily fortified areas, isolated from the outside world except for sparse internet connections and occasional visits.”

“Interesting.” Rhett thinks for a moment. “You think this might be the next evolution of nature? The earth producing monsters like the dinosaurs that—”

“What was that?” Allie’s voice is sharp.

A bolt of fear shoots through Link, leaving him shivering. Nina lifts her head.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

“Thought I saw something in the trees,” Allie says. She shifts her rifle to her right hand.

“No need to worry,” Brian says, but he still hits the gas. “We’re just a few miles away.”

Something slams into the jeep, knocking it off its axis. Link’s head smacks against the metal hatch over the window, leaving him dazed. He barely registers that Nina’s grabbing his arm and yelling, Jade’s barking, and everything is slanting crazily towards the driver’s side.

“We’re okay!” the driver yells, swerving back on-course. “Caddy thought he could—”

He never gets to finish. The reinforced windshield glass shatters as something dark bursts through. A gust of wind and and glass strikes them all. Link catches a glimpse of gray flesh, elongated claws and teeth, then screams and gunshots as the driver is ripped from the car.

Without a driver, the jeep careens down the road, veering towards the ditch. Link watches the trees rapidly approach, but he feels paralyzed. It’s like a bad dream is happening all over again. He shields his daughter from the impact with his body, bracing himself against the seatbelt.

Both Rhett and Allie lunge for the wheel, but she reaches it first. She steers away from the ditch and straight into another caddy, which brings them to a sudden halt.

Someone outside is screaming, voice rising with the caddies’ shrieks. By the time Link realizes it’s the driver, Allie is already firing through the windshield. Once, twice, three times. Then she’s yelling, “Get out of the car! Outoutoutoutout” and Rhett’s forcing the door open and pulling Nina out behind him.

Link barely makes it out of the car before a shambler hits it at full speed.

The entire front end of the truck crumples. Almost like paper, Link thinks. He doesn’t feel part of what’s happening around him. He might as well be watching tv. With detached interest, he notices that Rhett’s shooting at the shambler.

“Link! Some help here!”

The massive beast roars, massive paws coming to rest on the crushed remains of the hood. Its gray fur is matted with blood from a dozen bullet wounds, but it doesn’t seem injured at all. It reaches through the windshield, plucking Allie from her seat like an apple from a tree.

“Link!”

Rhett is talking to him.

Rhett. Is talking to  _ him. _

_ Oh. _

The gravity of the situation rushes upon him like a flood. He fumbles his gun from its holster, thumbs off the safety, and fires.

It takes several more shots before the shambler collapses in a mass of bloody fur. Link hangs back as Rhett goes to investigate. He already knows that Allie is dead.

“They’re  _ all  _ dead.”

Link glances down at Nina. She’s clutching her knife in one hand and wiping away tears with the other.

“They’re all dead, Dad. And Jade ran off.”

Link swallows down the bile rising in his throat. The road is littered with the twisted bodies of caddies. The driver lies a short distance away, a dark pool spreading from his body. He shuts his eyes for a moment.

Now someone’s laughing.

“Dad!” Nina’s voice jolts through him.  _ He’s _ laughing and he can’t stop, even when he claps a hand over his mouth and feels the tears on his face.

Rhett returns with a flare gun he’d found in the truck. His face has gone pale.

“Her gun’s too messed up to use,” he says shakily. “But maybe we can...”

He trails off, his face going slack in horror. Link whips around to follow his gaze.

He doesn’t see them at first. He wonders if Rhett’s messing with him somehow. Then he looks up.

There are caddies in the trees.

Link’s head fills with static. A ringing sound fills his ears. He stumbles backward until his shoulder bumps into Rhett’s chest, pulling Nina with him.

The monsters are clinging to the trunks of the pines, maybe a hundred of them, clustered as thickly as some kind of diseased fruit. Glassy black eyes, crooked masses of sharp teeth, thick claws on hands and feet.

Then as one, the caddies surge downward on all fours, crawling down trunks as easily as if they were crossing the ground.

Alarm bells are sounding in Link’s head. Something about these monsters is  _ wrong, _ even more so than usual. These caddies are completely silent, with none of the twitching motions associated with the ones lying dead in the road. They’re less humanoid, moving with unnerving, almost insect-like precision.

Then in unison, the monsters bare their teeth, releasing a blood-chilling shriek. They charge across the grass toward the road on all fours, jaws agape and ready to strike.


	11. The devil

Rhett prides himself on lots of things. He’s managed to stay fit in spite of his back problems. He never turns down a new experience. He's a quick thinker. Since the appearance of monsters, he’s become a decent marksman.

When the strange, four-legged caddies charge, his brain goes into overdrive.

The first thing he does is fire the flare gun into the approaching horde, the shot as loud as that of a regular gun. A burst of crimson temporarily blinds him. When his vision clears, the caddies have scattered. Sensitive to bright light, they’re rolling around on the ground and in the road, clawing at their eyes and shrieking.

Then he’s dragging Link and Nina back towards the truck with him. Link is wild-eyed and yelling about how they can’t outrun these things, Nina’s yelling about Jade and Rhett just wants them to shut the hell up so he can talk.

“Listen to me.” He grabs them both with a hand on each shoulder, shaking more roughly than he means to. “Listen! You two need to run.”

“W-we’re not leaving you,” Link protests. Rhett shakes his head.

“I’m just gonna slow you down if we gotta run from these things,” he says. “I can shoot pretty well, though.” His mounting adrenaline sharpens every detail of the rising horror on Link’s face.

“No...” Link’s voice is a whisper.

“You both need to head for Fort Bragg,” Rhett says firmly. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“But what are you gonna do, Pa?” The terror in Nina’s eyes causes Rhett almost physical pain. He wants to pick her up and start running and not stop until they’re safe, but he knows that isn’t an option.

He tries to smile, hoping that he looks confident and in control of the situation. “I’m gonna blow up the truck.”

A sharp cry from behind them. The caddies are crawling, reforming their ranks, preparing another charge.

“Just go.” Rhett shoves them both away from him. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Link retreats a few steps, still holding Nina’s hand. Then he freezes, runs back, and yanks Rhett down to his level, smashing their mouths together in a fierce kiss. When they break apart, his eyes are swimming with tears.

“I love you, Rhett.”

Before Rhett can reply, his husband and his daughter are gone, plunging into the woods on the opposite side of the road.

Reluctantly, Rhett tears his attention away from them and back to the task at hand. The snarling caddies advance on him slowly, moving with unsettling precision.

The first thing Rhett does is shoot two flares into the air. The light is enough to make the caddies hesitate again. Then slowly, pointing both flare gun and handgun at the creatures, he backs around the opposite side of the truck. Hastily, he wrenches open the gas cap and continues backpedaling. The empty gas cans in the back of the truck will come in handy, he hopes.

The caddies approach like a pack of wolves stalking their prey, climbing onto the road and over the truck like a horde of ants.

As he moves from the road to the grass, Rhett stumbles. With a unified scream, the monsters charge. One of them gets to him before the others and sinks its claws into his leg. Rhett collapses with a yell. He starts firing both guns in a blind panic, desperate to hit  _ something _ .

Then with a  _ pop,  _ a flare hits the truck.

The force of the explosion knocks Rhett back several feet. Heat scalds his face. With a yelp of terror, he notices flames licking up his leg. He beats them out with his hands.

The trees on both sides of the road are burning, and the caddies have lost all semblance of order. They screech and run for cover, some of them trailing flames. The creatures leave Rhett where he fell, their cries rapidly fading.

The only sounds are the crackling fire and his own labored breathing. He stares at the burning remains of the truck in something akin to disbelief.

_ It worked. _

Rhett looks down at himself. His jeans are soaked with blood, which is strange since his wounded leg doesn’t hurt at all. With gritted teeth, he unbuckles his belt and lashes it to his thigh, then removes his shirt and presses it against the injury, hoping to slow the blood loss. A sharp surge of pain makes him gasp. His stomach turns.

The monsters may be gone, but he’s in a vulnerable position. He’s out of flares and only has a few bullets left.

With agonizing slowness, Rhett drags himself to his feet. He can’t put much weight on his injured leg. The air is hot and full of burning embers, and with a note of worry, he realizes that the fire is spreading faster than he expected. Nothing he could do about it now, though.

Mentally bracing himself against the pain, Rhett turns to limp down the road.

He stops.

The devil blocks his way.

The creature stands in the middle of the road, motionless and flanked by two caddies. It’s an abomination of a mirage, an amalgamation of familiar parts: ram’s curved horns on its head, brown goat’s face and body, eagle’s talons as long as a man’s hand.

It’s staring at him.

Rhett meets the thing’s lifeless black eyes.

It begins striding toward him almost in slow motion, every step . The caddies on either side mirror its every move.

The sudden terror that grips Rhett is unlike any other. He’s never felt so cold, so alone and afraid. Sudden guilt washes over him. He didn’t save his family. He only prolonged the inevitable.

The devil’s small mouth quirks into a vile grin. The caddies bare their teeth.

_ YOU CAN’T SAVE THEM. _

And the hellwalker falls upon him.

~

The sound of the explosion stops Link and Nina in their tracks. They both look back the way they’ve come through the woods along the road, and then at each other.

Nina tugs at his hand. “Dad. We gotta go back.”

Link is torn. They could make it to the safety of the fort if they keep moving, but the thought of Rhett not surviving fills him with terror. Either way, he only has a few bullets left.

“Dad!”

He looks down at his daughter, frantic thoughts slowly clearing.

“That was a mistake, wasn’t it,” he murmurs. “Leaving Rhett behind.  _ Shit. _ No!” he adds quickly. “No cursing.”

“Come on, Dad!” She has her knife out, pulling as hard on his arm as she can with her free hand. “We can’t just leave Pa like that.”

Link realizes that there’s no way around it; they have to fight their way out. He trusts that Nina can hold her own; she’s certainly proven herself capable of surviving. But what will they find when they return?

“Wait.” Link pulls her back toward him. He drops to one knee, seizing the moment to embrace her tightly. He can feel her heart hammering madly, similar to his own. Breathing deeply, he promises himself that this won’t be the last time he hugs her. He’ll hold both her and Rhett again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Her brown eyes are full of tears, but her face is as stubbornly set as Rhett’s. She’s ready to fight, he realizes with a thrill of pride.

“Stay close to me,” he says. She nods.

Together, they sprint back up the road.

~

It’s a scene straight out of a nightmare. Bodies strewn over the road, the still-burning remains of the truck, the fire spreading in the trees surrounding the road. The air feels unpleasantly warm, even for a summer morning.

But Nina’s attention is fixed on one thing.

Her father on the ground by the bodies of two caddies. His shirt is gone. The hellwalker looms over him, one hoof planted firmly on his knee.

“Pa!”

He turns and she stops in her tracks. His face is bloody and slack with terror. “What — no! No! Run—”

The hellwalker stomps down on his leg. Pa roars in pain. The monster strikes again, swiping its talons across his body. He cries out once and goes still.

There’s so much blood.

Link charges past Nina, his gun ready. He fires his remaining bullets at the monster. It staggers, blood pouring from new wounds, but it doesn’t fall. With a taloned claw, it easily bats Link aside. He hits the ground hard enough for Nina to hear the impact.

“Dad!”

The hellwalker slowly turns its head to focus on Nina. Its gaze makes the breath catches in her throat.

Then that cold sense of purpose, first felt when she’d been held captive by Quentin and Val, returns with a vengeance. The fire, the cries of pain, the bodies — all of it fades away. There’s nothing but her and the hellwalker and its petrifying stare.

It lifts one hoof. It walks forward. It’s limping, thanks to the shots it took from Dad.

Nina lets it approach.

The hellwalker shambles forward, moving with increasing speed, teeth bared in a ghastly resemblance to a smile. Nina raises her knife in both hands. She clenches her jaw and balances her stance, as if she were preparing for a tae kwon do match.

She aims for one spot.

The sudden impact almost knocks her off her feet, but she holds steady. Sharp pain blossoms in her side and the world roars back into focus with the force of a gale. Her knife has struck true. Buried deep in the hellwalker’s black eye.

The monster’s talons twitch once, causing a spike of pain in her gut that makes her gasp. Then it collapses. Nina stands over it, her body shaking. Her knife hand is wet with dark creature blood.

The strangest part of all is that she does  _ not _ feel fear.

She staggers towards Pa’s body. His eyes are closed. Deep gashes are raked across his torso. One leg is bent the wrong way at the shin, the denim of his jeans soaked dark red.

Around her, the fire is out of control. Burning branches fall into the road. The air is thick with smoke and ash. It’s hard to breathe. She hesitates, not sure what to do. She can’t carry Pa by herself.

“Nina!”

Dad’s limping toward her, coughing into his shirt. Blood is streaming from his nose. His glasses are cracked but miraculously still on his face. He falls to his knees by Pa’s side and fumbles for a pulse.

“Still alive,” he says.

“We gotta get him out of here!” she yells.

Then pain stabs through her from the wound in her side. The world wavers around her. She stumbles, eyes burning from the smoke.

“Nina!” Dad’s by her side in an instant. He’s lifting her arm, exposing the wound in her side. His voice breaks. “You’re hurt, too...”

She looks down, notices the blood darkening her shirt.

“I don’t feel...”

Everything goes dim. She hears Dad calling her name from far away. The flames blur in the trees. All she can think about is how everything  _ hurts. _

The next thing she remembers is opening her eyes to a world of white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was curious, [this track](https://open.spotify.com/track/1xrfci6PJJIBzCbKTmfuX3) from the reboot of Doom was a big inspiration for creating the hellwalkers. If you're into heavy metal without lyrics, it's good stuff.


	12. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(image source)](https://pixabay.com/en/girl-african-braids-back-view-park-1310731/)

 

It begins to rain.

Link doesn't notice it at first. Everything’s a blur: the fire, the acrid taste of smoke and blood and tears, the screaming panic in his own head.

Rhett’s torso is bleeding in several places from the hellwalker’s claws, and the wound in Nina’s side is so deep it turns Link’s stomach.

He needs to make it stop. The bleeding, the fire, the nightmare that refuses to end. He rips off his own shirt, tears it apart with a strength he didn’t know he had. With shaking hands, he presses the remains of his shirt to their wounds, frantically hoping that he can somehow stop the blood loss and buy them some time.

That’s when he notices the rain.

It’s a small thing, cool water falling on his feverish skin, but it helps snap him out of his frantic mood. Link sinks back on his heels, Rhett and Nina still motionless on either side of him. The fact that they’re still breathing is little consolation. Shaking, he removes his shattered glasses and turns his face helplessly to the sky.

 _What do I do now?_ The truck is ruined. He has no way of taking Rhett and Nina with him. He could run the last few miles to the fort, but his family would die before he got that far.

The rainfall quickens, filling the awful silence with the soft sound of raindrops on leaves. If nothing else, it will help put the fire out.

He feels something furry nuzzle at his elbow.

He yelps, flailing about for his gun, but it’s just a dog. A _very_ small dog.

Nina’s dog.

“Jade?”

The puppy nuzzles at his hand, washed clean in the rain, then pads over to lick Nina’s face. Link breaks down completely then, his tears mingling with the rain on his face. He’s angrier at himself than he’s ever been in his life. He wishes he had aimed well enough to take the hellwalker down from a distance; he should’ve known better than to get too close. Most of all, he wishes he’d never left Rhett’s side.

A sudden rumbling sound makes him rear up, terrified. Jade scampers onto his lap and buries her face beneath his arm.

It’s a massive armored truck, rolling to a stop a few feet from the bodies on the road. Link blinks at it.

Then in a rush, armed soldiers in fatigues burst from the truck. They zero in on Link, and he finds himself swept up off the road and into the back of the truck, where he’s surrounded by medical equipment and too many voices. Rhett and Nina are also there, on stretchers that seem to have materialized from nowhere. A few grim-faced people are attending to their wounds with instruments that make Link’s stomach turn, so he looks away. Someone drapes a blanket around his shoulders.

A white light shines in Link’s face. As he squints blearily into it, a sharp female voice asks, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I don’t know... I don’t...” He turns his head away from the light, thankful that Jade is somehow still in his arms. “What’s happening?”

“You’re with a Fort Bragg rescue unit. We saw the smoke and flares, but we had to clear out a bunch of fuckin’ caddies before we could investigate.” The voice softens. Link tries to focus on her face, but the world is going blurry.

The last thing he remembers her saying is, “I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.”

~

Everything is too bright and it hurts to breathe. Nina tries to turn her head into the softness of her pillow and shuts her eyes.

The next time she wakes up, there’s a hellwalker standing over her. Its face is surrounded by smoke and embers.

She tries to scream, but the sound gets caught in her throat. The air is too hot to breathe. The monster looks down at her and smiles with thick, purple lips.

“Nina!”

An invisible force pins her down. She struggles against it with all her might, but her limbs refuse to cooperate. When she tries to take a deep breath to yell for her parents, a sharp pain lances through her side.

The monster lowers its head close to hers.

“Nina!”

She knows that voice. It’s Dad.

“You’re safe now. You don’t need to fight anymore.”

The image of the hellwalker wavers like a mirage. It’s just a dream.

“It’s okay, Nina.”

Her body goes limp. A warm grip envelopes her hands.

“I love you.”

She closes her eyes.

~

Rhett and Nina barely survive.

The true meaning of this doesn’t sink in for Link until much later. At the time, he’s being treated for a concussion and a myriad of cuts and bruises. At some point, he gets a new pair of glasses, but he isn’t sure how that happened. The first clear memory he has after the rescue is of sitting at Nina’s bedside on the pediatric floor of the fort’s hospital. Jade has taken to curling up at her feet and growling at anyone who tries to move her. Link appreciates her readiness for a fight; he likes the little dog.

Rhett is in a large room where the beds are cordoned off from each other by white curtains. His broken leg rests in a cast and his chest has to be sutured back together, the sight of which make Link’s stomach turn. But after the first few worrisome days, Rhett opens his eyes and blinks at Link.

“Where?” he rasps. He tries to sit up, but falls back with a grunt. He’s pale and his hair and and beard are an overgrown mess, but Link is just relieved to hear his voice.

“Fort Bragg.” Link’s eyes are burning, but he takes a deep breath. This isn’t the time to cry. He wants to throw himself on his husband and kiss him breathless, but instead he takes his hand and is rewarded with a weak squeeze.

Elsewhere in the room, someone wails in pain. A frown appears on Rhett’s face.

“Nina?”

“She’s upstairs.” Link had left Jade with her as well, as Nina was more calm when she had company.

The lines on Rhett’s face relax. “Good,” he whispers, and drifts off to sleep.

~

Life resumes some semblance of normalcy when they’re discharged from the hospital. By this time, they’ve been thoroughly interrogated about their journey, which Rhett learns is normal for newcomers. He tells them everything he can remember, especially the part about the hellwalker controlling the caddies. That was something no one had ever seen before.

After leaving the hospital, they’re placed in a two-bedroom brick house within the fort on a street lined with similar homes. It’s jarring after everything they’ve experienced to be thrown into something so mundane. There are frequent reminders that life is different — electricity gets turned off on a weekly rotating schedule between 2100 and 0600 in residential areas, food is provided in weekly rations, everyone is strongly encouraged to start their own vegetable gardens, and if Rhett walks too far in one direction, he comes up against the multiple layers of fences, watchtowers, and barbed wire that make up the fort’s boundaries.

Rhett takes charge of monitoring his and Nina’s meds and doctor’s appointments. All able-bodied residents of the fort are required to contribute to the maintenance of the fort to earn their keep, so Link is often gone. Sometimes he spends his days chopping wood to stockpile for colder weather, other days he puts his engineering experience to work and helps upgrade assembly lines. When Rhett is well enough to work again, he gets assigned to an engineering team tasked with updating the fort’s vehicle repair facility. Nina gets enrolled in the fort’s school.

Working with a team of people after months of living with Link and Nina leaves Rhett’s nerves frayed. He tries not to take his annoyance out on his family, but there are some days that he slips up. Link usually soothes him, but there are days when he snaps back and they argue late into the night.

On other days, he goes for walks, down narrow streets lined with identical one-story brick houses. His back aches almost constantly these days, but he feels better when he gets some fresh air. The neighborhood’s layout is different from any he’s seen before. Few people have managed to get their cars or trucks to the fort, and those who did are quickly conscripted to help with transportation. The driveways, front yards, and backyards have mostly been converted into neat little vegetable gardens. Rhett likes to see what other people have planted. The garden in his family’s yard had been planted with okra, potatoes, and onions before they moved in.

Nina accompanies him with Jade sometimes, but neither of them talk much. Rhett knows they need to have a big, sit-down family discussion eventually, but he doesn’t have the strength for that now. All his energy is consumed with work.

~

As the leaves turn colors and the weather turns crisp, Nina’s nightmares get worse. Sometimes she’s running from a horde of hellwalkers, or drowning in a river churning with giant squid, or falling into an endless void. But she doesn’t want to bother her parents. She’s not a baby, she’s just turned fourteen! She’s killed monsters! She can deal with a few bad dreams. So most nights, Nina ends up lying awake, gazing up at the ceiling as a pit of frustration and anger grows in her chest.

One night, she’s jolted out of a cloud of misery to hear Dad come home. He generally doesn’t work too late, but he’s been working with a second-shift team this month and Nina has barely seen him for days. Nina suddenly wants to be near him, hug him, tell him and Pa about her nightmares so they can soothe her back to sleep

Jade lifts her head from her customary spot at the foot of the bed as Nina gets up, but a whispered, “Stay,” keeps her from following Nina out the door.

She pads barefoot down the hall to the kitchen and stops short. The electricity is off for the night in their neighborhood this week, so the only light comes from several candles on the counter. Her parents are standing by the sink. Dad’s face is buried in Pa’s chest. From the shaking of his shoulders, she can tell that he’s crying. Pa doesn’t say anything, he just rubs circles in Dad’s back, but his eyes are red. It occurs to Nina that he purposely stayed up to wait for Dad.

“I’m sorry,” Dad whispers after a moment. “I’m just... exhausted.”

“You’ve been pushing yourself pretty hard,” Pa says quietly.

Dad groans. “What else am I supposed to do? You know I need to be working or else I go crazy.”

“I know.”

There’s a lump in Nina’s throat. Before she can speak, however, Dad says, “Is Nina asleep?”

She shrinks back at the mention of her name, but all Pa says is, “Think so.”

“Good.” Dad pulls away from the embrace, removes his glasses, wipes his face dry on his shirt. His grey hair has become especially pronounced recently. “I’m sorry,” he says again, chuckling weakly. “We’ve been through so much, Rhett.”

Pa nods in agreement. “We need to find a time for the three of us to sit down and just _talk_ about everything.”

Dad sighs. “I know, but our schedules are so awful these days and Nina has school...” He starts wiping his glasses on his shirt, shaking his head. “We decided to move here for her sake, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”

Pa nods again. “We’re still adjusting,” he offers.

“Yeah.” Dad slips his glasses back on. “You know what, I’ll check on Nina. See if she’s awake and wants to talk.”

Her heart pounding, Nina scampers back to her room as silently as possible, throwing herself down on the bed in what she hopes is a position of deep sleep. She tries to make her breathing deep and even. A few moments later, her door opens and Dad tiptoes in. She almost flinches as he trips over the backpack she’d left by the door.

There’s movement at the foot of the bed and the clink of a dog collar as Jade hops up to greet him.

“Hey, Jade,” he whispers. “How have you two been tonight?”

Dad’s scratchy stubble brushes against Nina’s forehead as he gives her a kiss. She remembers him doing this almost every night when she was in first grade, before she gravely explained to him that she was too old to be tucked in for the night. The memory makes her eyes burn with tears, but she focuses on keeping her breathing steady

“Love you, Nina Jay,” Dad whispers.

Then he’s gone. As soon as he closes the door behind him, Nina bursts into tears.

Dad’s sad and tired, and it’s all her fault.

Over the next few weeks, Nina feels like she’s all over the place. Some days, she feels fine. School in the fort is quite different from what she’s used to, and she generally enjoys it. There are so few children that everyone of compulsory age is put into the same building. Nina’s class is made up of seventh, eighth, and ninth graders. Nina walks to class, teases her best friend Liz about her myriad of crushes, and skips home at the end of the day to find Pa making a savory stew from their food ration.

Other days, she wants the world to slow down. Thinking about the conversation she’d overheard that night fills her with guilt, which infuriates her. Once, she even punches a classmate during lunch break. Dad gets called in to talk to the school psychologist and take her home early.

He doesn’t speak to Nina until they’re walking home.

“Why did you punch him?” he asks.

“Chris was teasing Liz and Kaya at lunch and the teachers weren’t doing anything,” she says. Her knuckles are still tingling from where they connected with Chris’ cheek. She hadn’t expected it to feel so satisfying to wipe the smirk off his face with one blow.

They walk in silence for a moment.

“You got him good,” Dad says.

“I don’t care if you’re mad,” Nina says quickly. “He’s stupid and mean to everyone and I hate him.”

“I’m not mad.” Dad’s voice is gentle.

Nina frowns up at him. He _does_ seem remarkably calm, strolling along with his hands in his pockets and his gaze on the road ahead.

“Sometimes,” he says, “you need to stand up for your friends.”

~

Rhett is waiting for them on the couch when they get home. He’s never been so thankful to have a weekday off work.

“C’mere.” He opens his arms. Nina flees to him, hiding her face in his shirt. Rhett hugs her and looks over her head at Link, who settles onto the couch beside them. Link shakes his head, removes his glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“So you got in a fight, huh?” Rhett asks.

“Wasn’t a fight,” Nina says, her face still hidden. “I just punched him. That’s all.”

Rhett raises an eyebrow at Link, who only shrugs.

“Nina.” He waits until she raises her head to look at him. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“There was a kid at lunch that wouldn’t leave me and my friends alone. So I hit him to make him stop.”

“Why didn’t you tell a teacher?”

She sniffles. “Punching is faster!”

Link rakes his hair back from his forehead and slips his glasses back on. “Why did you do it?” he asks.

“Because.” Nina takes a deep breath. “I’m mad.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” she yells. “I’m just... I feel bad! If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Those people in the truck with us wouldn’t have gotten killed. I have nightmares all the time about monsters hurting them or you guys or me and I hate it! A-and I heard you and Dad talking one night.” Her voice drops. “You said you moved here for _me._ All of this mess happened because of me.”

Again, Rhett and Link exchange glances. Link’s eyes are wide with shock.

“None of what happened out there was your fault,” he says gently. He leans forward, elbows on knees. “We’re all adjusting to living around other people again.”

Nina says nothing, so Rhett asks, “Were you happy when we lived in the shelter?”

“Sometimes,” Nina says. She slides off his lap, drawing her knees to her chest in the space between her parents. “Well... maybe not.”

“Neither were Dad and I. Being stuck underground with almost nobody to talk to is a rough way to live. Now, we’re safe, we don’t have to worry about food, and we have friends. You’re in school again.” Rhett nudges her with a grin. “You survived in the wild on your own and killed a freaking _hellwalker._ You’re a true badass.”

“Language,” Link murmurs, but he’s grinning, too.

Rhett chuckles. “None of that would’ve happened if we hadn’t taken the risk of leaving the shelter.”

Nina peers up at him, eyes filling with tears. She looks from him to Dad. “So you’re not mad at me?”

“No!” Rhett says, at the same time as Link says, “Of course not.”

Rhett means to say more, but Nina surprises him with a hug. She turns to embrace Link, and Rhett feels his heart warm for the first time in ages. He loves them both so much.

There’s much more that they need to discuss, but this is a good start.

~

The buzzing of the hair clippers abruptly stops.

“Okay,” Link says, “you can open your eyes.”

Rhett frowns at himself in the bathroom mirror, brushing loose hair from his newly trimmed beard. Link had insisted on being the one to tame his wild mane when Rhett announced that he finally needed to shave. The bushy, shaggy-haired man who stepped into the bathroom is gone. Now, he looks like the Rhett that worked for Black & Veatch by day and browsed multiverse theories by night.

Outside the bathroom, he can hear Nina singing at the top of her lungs as she scampers around her room. The school is hosting a spring dance tonight. Rhett’s not sure if she’s more excited for the dance or for sleeping over at her friend’s house afterward. He fondly remembers his own love of sleepovers.

It’s strange. He can’t deny that the past couple of years have changed him and his family immensely. But there are times like these where he catches brief glimpses of his old self and laments the loss of an innocence he didn’t even realize he’d had.

He meets Link’s eyes in the mirror. They both look so... _normal._ Just a married couple standing side-by-side. What they could have been if the monsters hadn’t appeared. The haunted look in their eyes is the only sign of a change.

The fight against the monsters has been going well, from what Rhett’s been able to gather from his colleagues. Workers from Fort Bragg are kept busy clearing out the last of the whiptails in the surrounding area, and a small number of people have left the fort to move into the newly fortified houses there. Neither Rhett nor Link can imagine leaving the fort permanently, though. When Rhett gets the itch to explore and experience something new, a few shifts with the whiptail-clearing crew are enough to satisfy him.

Link grins suddenly, bowing his head as he removes the towel from around Rhett’s shoulders. He drapes the towel on the sink and encircles Rhett from behind, chest to back, arms around Rhett’s middle. Rhett can feel the thump of his heartbeat through his shirt.

“Thank you,” Link murmurs.

Rhett understands. He needed this haircut as much as Link needed to be the one to give it. He’d almost forgotten the peace that came from moments like these.

“Thank _you,_ ” he says, covering Link’s hand with his own.

“Now you finally look presentable.”

Rhett snorts. “So _that’s_ why you wanted to cut my hair, huh?”

Link only chuckles, swaying a little in place. “Maybe.”

Neither of them want to move. It’s just them in the bathroom, an island of silence with Nina holding a one-woman rock concert in her room. Rhett smiles to himself; he’s missed how unashamedly Nina expresses happiness. He finally taps Link’s wrist.

“Let’s clean up before you fall asleep.”

~

A short while later, Nina emerges from her room with a backpack and Jade in tow, wearing a purple dress that she’d borrowed from a friend and an oversized navy blue jacket. She finds her parents out back, surveying the work they’d done on the garden.

“We’re going to Anna’s house!” she calls.

Link trots back to give her a hug. Rhett follows more slowly.

“When are you gonna be back?” he asks.

“Tomorrow morning, I think? Maybe around 0900 or something.” Nina grins up at him. “Wow, Pop, you look different with a short beard. You kinda... you have a little face.”

Rhett throws back his head and laughs so hard that he has to lean on Link’s shoulder for support. Then there’s a flurry of hugs and kisses and last-minute advice, and Nina and Jade trot around the house and down the street.

“Don’t punch any boys,” Link calls after her.

“Not unless they deserve it,” Rhett adds. He laughs again when Link rolls his eyes.

Back in the house, they curl up on the couch together. Rhett pulls out a book, but by the time he opens to his bookmarked page, Link’s arm is curling around his torso, beneath his shirt.

“I like your little face,” he murmurs almost shyly.

Rhett needs little prompting to set his book aside. He lets Link kiss him, lets his husband climb astride him and run long fingers through his curly hair.

They don’t talk much tonight. They’ve slept together every now and then, but it’s been a perfunctory thing—a few rushed moments before collapsing exhausted in bed.

It’s been months since they’ve truly made love.

“Bed,” Rhett manages between kisses.

Link springs off his lap and helps him up. His eyes are fiery and sharp, his hair a lovely mess of grey and brown. He tugs Rhett into their room and brings their mouths together.

Rhett has never been in such a hurry to tear off his clothes. Soon enough, he’s on his back on the bed, Link astride him. It’s a familiar position, one they’ve taken more frequently now that Rhett’s back bothers him so much. Link likes riding him, too, likes being able to touch himself and moan and roll his hips with Rhett tracing all of his curves. Rhett is desperate to reacquaint himself with every part of his husband’s body, from the hard muscles in his shoulders to the softness of his belly. He pulls Link down against him as they both near the edge.

When Rhett comes, it only takes a few quick strokes before Link does the same. They collapse tangled together, heedless of the mess, and trade slow, love-drunk kisses.

After cleaning up, they’re quiet for a while. Rhett’s not sure how long he sleeps until he wakes to the feel of Link nuzzling at his throat. Wordlessly, Link passes a hand over the now-healed scars on Rhett’s chest, his expression momentarily sinking into one of regret. Rhett catches his hand and squeezes reassuringly.

 _It wasn’t your fault._ He almost says it aloud, but Link captures his mouth hungrily and all coherent thought flees his mind.

They do this all night: dozing lightly, making out, touching frantically, worshipping each other’s bodies, filling the air with gasps and moans as they climax. It all becomes a heady blur for Rhett, and he relishes every moment of it.

It isn’t until sunlight begins peeking between the blinds that they’re both sated at last.

~

The house is silent when Nina opens the door the next morning. Jade scampers ahead. Nina follows her to her parents’ room.

Her dads are sound asleep beneath the covers, Pa curled on his side with his head on Dad’s chest. She recalls that they both have this Saturday off work. When Jade springs up on the bed to lick his face, Pa mumbles and weakly turns her away, blinking first at the sunlit window and then at his daughter.

“Nin...?”

“Go back to sleep, Pop,” she whispers.

“You had fun?” he yawns, snuggling against Dad.

“Yep. Anna and I stayed up the whole night.”

Pa chuckles. “Nice.”

Dad stirs at the sound of his laughter, his eyes heavy with sleep.

“Didja punch any boys?” he murmurs.

“Daaad, stop.” Nina tries to sound annoyed, but she can’t hide her grin. “I didn’t even _talk_ to any of them.”

“Mmmm. Good.” Dad sinks back onto his pillow.

“Anyway, I’m gonna sleep now.”

Pa yawns again. “Night, Nina. Or morning, I guess.”

Dad is already asleep. Nina gives Pa a brief hug before slipping away to her own room for a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to [missingparentheses](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missingparentheses) and [thegreyhenley](http://thegreyhenley.tumblr.com/) for being the most patient and understanding beta readers ever. And to [mythical-michelle](https://mythical-michelle.tumblr.com) for letting me brainstorm and complain when I didn’t feel like writing. You guys are some quality people. ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> And thanks to anyone else who's stuck with this story even when I was on the verge of abandoning it. Y'all are the best!


End file.
